LIBRARY 

<***"*- 
IRVINE, 


by  ;£ttr.  Uobmsor,. 


VERMONT:  A  Study  of  Independence.  In 
American  Commonwealths  Series.  With  Map. 
i6mo,  gilt  top,  $1.25. 

DANVIS   FOLKS.     A  Novel.     i6rao,  $1.25. 

IN  NEW  ENGLAND  FIELDS  AND  WOODS. 
i6mo,  #1.25. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK. 


In  New  England  Fields 
and  Woods 


V 

Rowland  E.  Robinson 


Boston  and  New  York 
Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company 


1896 


Q/t 


Copyright,  1896, 
ROWLAND  E.  ROBINSON, 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


TO 

THE  MEMORY  OF 

MY    MOTHER 

THIS   BOOK 
IS   AFFECTIONATELY    INSCRIBED 


THE  weather  and  the  changes  of  the  sea- 
sons are  such  common  and  convenient  topics 
that  one  need  not  apologize  for  talking  about 
them,  though  he  says  nothing  new. 

Still  less  need  one  make  an  apology  if 
he  becomes  garrulous  in  relation  to  scenes 
which  are  now  hidden  from  him  by  a  curtain 
of  darkness,  or  concerning  some  humble 
acquaintances  with  whom  he  was  once  on 
familiar  terms,  but  who  now  and  hereafter 
can  only  be  memories,  though  they  are  yet 
near  him  and  he  may  still  hear  their  voices. 

So  without  excuse  I  offer  this  collection 
of  sketches,  which  with  a  few  exceptions 
were  first  published  in  the  columns  of  "  For- 
est and  Stream." 

R.  E.  R. 


CONTENTS 


I.  THE  NAMELESS  SEASON      ...  i 

II.  MARCH  DAYS 5 

III.  THE  HOME  FIRESIDE      ....  13 

IV.  THE  CROW 17 

V.  THE  MINK 22 

VI.  APRIL  DAYS 27 

VII.  THE  WOODCHUCK 33 

VIII.  THE  CHIPMUNK 37 

IX.   SPRING  SHOOTING 40 

X.  THE  GARTER-SNAKE 43 

XI.  THE  TOAD      ........  48 

XII.  MAY  DAYS 52 

XIII.  THE  BOBOLINK 56 

XIV.  THE   GOLDEN  -  WINGED  WOOD- 

PECKER     59 

XV.  JUNE  DAYS 63 

-    XVI.  THE  BULLFROG 66 

XVII.  THE  ANGLER 70 

XVIII.   FARMERS  AND  FIELD  SPORTS     .  79 

XIX.  To  A  TRESPASS  SIGN      ....  84 

XX.  A  GENTLE  SPORTSMAN  ....  88 

XXI.  JULY  DAYS     ........  91 

XXII.  CAMPING  OUT 98 

XXIII.  THE  CAMP-FIRE 103 

XXIV.  A  RAINY  DAY  IN  CAMP     ...  107 
XXV.  AUGUST  DAYS 113 

XXVI.  A  VOYAGE  IN  THE  DARK  .    .    .  118 

XXVII.  THE  SUMMER  CAMP-FIRE  ...  129 

XXVIII.  THE  RACCOON 132 

XXIX.  THE  RELUCTANT  CAMP-FIRE  .    .  141 


CONTENTS 


XXX.  SEPTEMBER  DAYS 143 

XXXI.  A  PLEA  FOR  THE  UNPROTECTED  148 

XXXII.  THE  SKUNK 154 

XXXIII.  A  CAMP-FIRE  RUN  WILD    ...  158 

XXXIV.  THE  DEAD  CAMP-FIRE   ....  163 
XXXV.  OCTOBER  DAYS 168 

XXXVI.  A  COMMON  EXPERIENCE     .    .    .  172 

XXXVII.  THE  RED  SQUIRREL 178 

XXXVIII.   THE  RUFFED  GROUSE     ....  182 

XXXIX.  Two  SHOTS 189 

XL.   NOVEMBER  DAYS 196 

XLI.   THE  MUSKRAT   . 201 

XLII.   NOVEMBER  VOICES 205 

XLIII.  THANKSGIVING 208 

XLIV.  DECEMBER  DAYS 211 

XLV.   WINTER  VOICES 216 

XLVI.  THE  VARYING  HARE 219 

XLVII.  THE  WINTER  CAMP-FIRE    ...  224 

XLVIII.  JANUARY  DAYS 229 

XLIX.  A  NEW  ENGLAND  WOODPILE     .  235 

L.  A  CENTURY  OF  EXTERMINATION  251 

LI.  THE  PERSISTENCY  OF  PESTS  .    .  255 

LII.  THE  WEASEL 260 

LIII.  FEBRUARY  DAYS 263 

LIV.  THE  Fox 270 

LV.  AN  ICE-STORM 276 

LVI.   SPARE  THE  TREES 281 

LVII.  THE  CHICKADEE 284 


IN  NEW  ENGLAND  FIELDS 
AND   WOODS 


THE   NAMELESS    SEASON 

IN  the  March  page  of  our  almanac,  op- 
posite the  2Oth  of  the  month  we  find  the 
bold  assertion,  "  Now  spring  begins  ; " 
but  in  the  northern  part  of  New  England, 
for  which  this  almanac  was  especially 
compiled,  the  weather  does  not  bear  out 
the  statement. 

The  snow  may  be  gone  from  the  fields 
except  in  grimy  drifts,  in  hollows  and  along 
fences  and  woodsides ;  but  there  is  scarcely 
a  sign  of  spring  in  the  nakedness  of  pas- 
ture, meadow,  and  ploughed  land,  now 
more  dreary  in  the  dun  desolation  of  life- 
less grass,  debris  of  stacks,  and  black  fur- 
rows than  when  the  first  snow  covered  the 
lingering  greenness  of  December. 


THE   NAMELESS   SEASON 


It  is  quite  as  likely  that  the  open  lands 
are  still  under  the  worn  and  dusty  blanket 
of  snow,  smirched  with  all  the  litter  cast 
upon  it  by  cross-lot-faring  teams,  and  win- 
try winds  blowing  for  months  from  every 
quarter.  The  same  untidiness  pervades 
all  outdoors.  We  could  never  believe  that 
so  many  odds  and  ends  could  have  been 
thrown  out  of  doors  helter-skelter,  in 
three  months  of  ordinary  life,  till  the 
proof  confronts  us  on  the  surface  of  the 
subsiding  snow  or  lies  stranded  on  the 
bare  earth.  The  wind  comes  with  an 
icier  breath  from  the  wintrier  north,  and 
yet  blows  untempered  from  the  south, 
over  fields  by  turns  frozen  and  sodden, 
through  which  the  swollen  brooks  rush  in 
yellow  torrents  with  sullen  monotonous 
complaint. 

One  may  get  more  comfort  in  the  woods, 
though  the  snow  still  lies  deep  in  their 
shelter ;  for  here  may  be  found  the  sugar- 
maker's  camp,  with  its  mixed  odors  of 
pungent  smoke  and  saccharine  steam,  its 
wide  environment  of  dripping  spouts  and 
tinkling  tin  buckets,  signs  that  at  last  the 
pulse  of  the  trees  is  stirred  by  a  subtle 
promise  of  returning  spring. 


THE   NAMELESS   SEASON 

The  coarse  -  grained  snow  is  strewn 
thickly  with  shards  of  bark  that  the  trees 
have  sloughed  in  their  long  hibernation, 
with  shreds  and  tatters  of  their  tempest- 
torn  branches.  But  all  this  litter  does 
not  offend  the  eye  nor  look  out  of  place, 
like  that  which  is  scattered  in  fields  and 
about  homesteads.  When  this  three 
months'  downfall  of  fragments  sinks  to 
the  carpet  of  flattened  leaves,  it  will  be 
at  one  with  it,  an  inwoven  pattern,  as 
comely  as  the  shifting  mesh  of  browner 
shadows  that  trunks  and  branches  weave 
between  the  splashes  of  sunshine.  Among 
these  is  a  garnishment  of  green  moss 
patches  and  fronds  of  perennial  ferns 
which  tell  of  life  that  the  stress  of  win- 
ter could  not  overcome.  One  may  dis- 
cover, amid  the  purple  lobes  of  the  squir- 
relcup  leaves,  downy  buds  that  promise 
blossoms,  and  others,  callower,  but  of  like 
promise,  under  the  rusty  links  of  the  ar- 
butus chain. 

One  hears  the  resonant  call  of  a  wood- 
pecker rattled  out  on  a  seasoned  branch 
or  hollow  stub,  and  may  catch  the  muffled 
beat  of  the  partridge's  drum,  silent  since 
the  dreamy  days  of  Indian  summer,  now 
3 


THE   NAMELESS   SEASON 


throbbing  again  in  slow  and  accelerated 
pulsations  of  evasive  sound  through  the 
unroofed  arches  of  the  woodlands.  And 
one  may  hear,  wondering  where  the  poor 
vagrants  find  food  and  water,  the  wild 
clangor  of  the  geese  trumpeting  their 
aerial  northward  march,  and  the  quick 
whistle  of  the  wild  duck's  pinions,  —  hear 
the  carol  of  an  untimely  bluebird  and  the 
disconsolate  yelp  of  a  robin  ;  but  yet  it  is 
not  spring. 

Presently  comes  a  great  downfall  of 
snow,  making  the  earth  beautiful  again 
with  a  whiteness  outshining  that  of  the 
winter  that  is  past.  The  damp  flakes 
cling  to  every  surface,  and  clothe  wall, 
fence  and  tree,  field  and  forest,  with  a 
more  radiant  mantle  than  the  dusty  snow 
and  slanted  sunshine  of  winter  gave  them. 

There  is  nothing  hopeful  of  spring  but 
a  few  meagre  signs,  and  the  tradition  that 
spring  has  always  come  heretofore. 

It  is  not  winter,  it  is  not  spring,  but  a 
season  with  an  individuality  as  marked  as 
either,  yet  without  a  name. 
4 


II 

MARCH    DAYS 

BACK  and  forth  across  the  land,  in 
swift  and  sudden  alternation,  the  March 
winds  toss  days  of  bitter  cold  and  days  of 
genial  warmth,  now  out  of  the  eternal 
winter  of  the  north,  now  from  the  endless 
summer  of  the  tropics. 

Repeated  thawing  and  freezing  has 
given  the  snow  a  coarse  grain.  It  is  like 
a  mass  of  fine  hailstones  and  with  no 
hint  of  the  soft  and  feathery  flakes  that 
wavered  down  like  white  blossoms  shed 
from  the  unseen  bloom  of  some  far-off 
upper  world  and  that  silently  transformed 
the  unseemliness  of  the  black  and  tawny 
earth  into  the  beauty  of  immaculate  pur- 
ity. 

One  day,  when  the  wind  breathes  from 
the  south  a  continuous  breath  of  warmth, 
your  feet  sink  into  this  later  coarseness 
come  of  its  base  earthly  association,  with 
a  grinding  slump,  as  in  loose  wet  sand,  so 
S 


MARCH   DAYS 


deep,  perhaps,  that  your  tracks  are  gray 
puddles,  marking  your  toilsome  way. 

As  you  wallow  on,  or  perch  for  a  mo- 
ment's rest  on  a  naked  fence-top  among 
the  smirched  drifts,  you  envy  the  crows 
faring  so  easily  along  their  aerial  paths 
above  you.  How  pleasant  are  the  voices 
of  these  returning  exiles,  not  enemies 
now,  but  friendly  messengers,  bringing 
tidings  of  spring.  You  do  not  begrudge 
them  the  meagre  feasts  they  find,  the 
frozen  apple  still  hanging,  brown  and 
wrinkled,  in  the  bare  orchard,  or  the  win- 
ter-killed youngling  of  flock  or  herd,  cast 
forth  upon  a  dunghill,  and  which  discov- 
ered, one  generous  vagabond  calls  all  his 
black  comrades  to  partake  of. 

Watching  them  as  they  lag  across  the 
sky,  yet  swifter  than  the  white  clouds 
drift  above  them,  you  presently  note  that 
these  stand  still,  as  you  may  verify  by 
their  blue  shadows  on  the  snow,  lying 
motionless,  with  the  palpitating  shadows 
of  the  crows  plunging  into  them  on  this 
side,  then,  lost  for  an  instant  in  the  blue 
obscurity,  then,  emerging  on  that  side 
with  the  same  untiring  beat  of  shadowy 
wings.  A  puff  of  wind  comes  out  of  the 
6 


MARCH   DAYS 


north,  followed  by  an  angry  gust,  and 
then  a  howling  wintry  blast  that  the 
crows  stagger  against  in  labored  flight  as 
they  make  for  the  shelter  of  the  woods. 

You,  too,  toil  to  shelter  and  fireside 
warmth,  and  are  thankful  to  be  out  of  the 
biting  wind  and  the  treacherous  footing. 
The  change  has  come  so  suddenly  that 
the  moist,  grainy  snow  is  frozen  before  it 
has  time  to  leach,  and  in  a  little  while 
gives  you  a  surface  most  delightful  to 
walk  upon,  and  shortens  distances  to  half 
what  they  were.  It  has  lost  its  first  pure 
whiteness  wherewith  no  other  whiteness 
can  compare,  but  it  is  yet  beyond  all 
things  else,  and  in  the  sunlight  dazzles 
you  with  a  broad  glare  and  innumerable 
scintillating  points  of  light,  as  intense  as 
the  sun  itself. 

The  sunshine,  the  bracing  air,  the 
swaying  boughs  of  the  pines  and  hem- 
locks beckoning  at  the  woodside,  and  the 
firm  smooth  footing,  irresistibly  invite 
you  forth.  Your  feet  devour  the  way 
with  crisp  bites,  and  you  think  that  no- 
thing could  be  more  pleasant  to  them  till 
you  are  offered  a  few  yards  of  turf,  laid 
bare  by  winds  and  sun,  and  then  you  real- 
7 


MARCH   DAYS 


ize  that  nothing  is  quite  so  good  as  the 
old  stand-by,  a  naked  ground,  and  crave 
more  of  it,  even  as  this  is,  and  hunger 
for  it  with  its  later  garnishing  of  grass 
and  flowers.  The  crows,  too,  are  drawn 
to  these  bare  patches  and  are  busy  upon 
them,  and  you  wonder  what  they  can  find  ; 
spiders,  perhaps,  for  these  you  may  see 
in  thawy  days  crawling  sluggishly  over 
the  snow,  where  they  must  have  come 
from  the  earth. 

The  woods  are  astir  with  more  life  than 
a  month  ago.  The  squirrels  are  busy  and 
noisy,  the  chickadees  throng  about  you, 
sometimes  singing  their  sweet  brief  song 
of  three  notes  ;  the  nuthatches  pipe  their 
tiny  trumpets  in  full  orchestra,  and  the 
jays  are  clamoring  their  ordinary  familiar 
cries  with  occasional  notes  that  you  do 
not  often  hear.  One  of  these  is  a  soft, 
rapidly  uttered  cluck,  the  bird  all  the  time 
dancing  with  his  body,  but  not  with  his 
feet,  to  his  own  music,  which  is  pleasant 
to  the  ear,  especially  when  you  remember 
it  is  a  jay's  music,  which  in  the  main  can- 
not be  recommended.  To-day,  doubtless, 
he  is  practicing  the  allurements  of  the 
mating  season. 

8 


MARCH   DAYS 


You  hear  the  loud  cackle  of  a  logcock 
making  the  daily  round  of  his  preserves, 
but  you  are  not  likely  to  get  more  than  a 
glimpse  of  his  black  plumage  or  a  gleam 
of  his  blood-red  crest. 

By  rare  luck  you  may  hear  the  little 
Acadian  owl  filing  his  invisible  saw,  but 
you  are  likelier  to  see  him  and  mistake 
him  for  a  clot  of  last  year's  leaves  lodged 
midway  in  their  fall  to  earth. 

The  forest  floor,  barred  and  netted  with 
blue  shadows  of  trunks  and  branches,  is 
strewn  with  dry  twigs,  evergreen  leaves, 
shards  of  bark,  and  shreds  of  tree-moss 
and  lichen,  with  heaps  of  cone  scales,  — 
the  squirrel's  kitchen  middens,  —  the 
sign  of  a  partridge's  nightly  roosting, 
similar  traces  of  the  hare's  moonlight 
wanderings,  and  perhaps  a  fluff  of  his 
white  fur,  showing  where  his  journeys 
have  ended  forever  in  a  fox's  maw. 

Here  and  there  the  top  of  a  cradle 
knoll  crops  out  of  the  snow  with  its 
patches  of  green  moss,  sturdy  upright 
stems  and  leaves  and  red  berries  of  win- 
tergreen,  as  fresh  as  when  the  first  snow 
covered  them,  a  rusty  trail  of  mayflower 
leaves,  and  the  flat-pressed  purple  lobes 
9 


MARCH   DAYS 


of  squirrel  cup  with  a  downy  heart  of 
buds  full  of  the  promise  of  spring. 

The  woods  are  filled  with  a  certain 
subtle  scent  quite  distinct  from  the  very 
apparent  resinous  and  balsamic  aroma  of 
the  evergreens,  that  eludes  description, 
but  as  a  kind  of  freshness  that  tickles  the 
nose  with  longing  for  a  more  generous 
waft  of  it.  You  can  trace  it  to  no  source, 
as  you  can  the  odors  of  the  pine  and  the 
hemlocks  or  the  sweet  fragrance  of  the 
boiling  sap,  coming  from  the  sugar- 
maker's  camp  with  a  pungent  mixture  of 
wood-smoke.  You  are  also  made  aware 
that  the  skunk  has  been  abroad,  that 
reynard  is  somewhere  to  windward,  and 
by  an  undescribed,  generally  unrecog- 
nized, pungency  in  the  air  that  a  gray 
squirrel  lives  in  your  neighborhood.  Yet 
among  all  these  more  potent  odors  you 
still  discover  this  subtle  exhalation,  per- 
haps of  the  earth  filtered  upward  through 
the  snow,  perhaps  the  first  awakening 
breath  of  all  the  deciduous  trees. 

Warmer  shines  the  sun  and  warmer 
blows  the  wind  from  southern  seas  and 
southern  lands.  More  and  more  the 


MARCH   DAYS 


tawny  earth  comes  in  sight  among  pud- 
dles of  melted  snow,  which  bring  the  mir- 
rored sky  and  its  fleecy  flocks  of  clouds, 
with  treetops  turned  topsy-turvy,  down 
into  the  bounds  of  fields.  The  brooks 
are  alive  again  and  babbling  noisily  over 
their  pebbled  beds,  and  the  lake,  hearing 
them,  groans  and  cries  for  deliverance 
from  its  prison  of  ice. 

On  the  marshes  you  may  find  the  ice 
shrunken  from  the  shores  and  an  inter- 
vening strip  of  water  where  the  muskrat 
may  see  the  sun  and  the  stars  again. 
You  hear  the  trumpets  of  the  wild  geese 
and  see  the  gray  battalion  riding  north- 
ward on  the  swift  wind. 

The  sun  and  the  south  wind,  which 
perhaps  bears  some  faint  breath  of  stolen 
fragrance  from  far-off  violet  banks,  tempt 
forth  the  bees,  but  they  find  no  flowers 
yet,  not  even  a  squirrelcup  or  willow  cat- 
kin, and  can  only  make  the  most  of  the 
fresh  sawdust  by  the  wood-pile  and  the 
sappy  ends  of  maple  logs. 

Down  from  the  sky,  whose  livery  he 
wears  and  whose  song  he  sings,  comes 
the  heavenly  carol  of  the  bluebird ;  the 


MARCH   DAYS 


song  sparrow  trills  his  cheery  melody ; 
the  first  robin  is  announced  to-day,  and 
we  cry,  "  Lo,  spring  has  come."  But  to- 
morrow may  come  winter  and  longer 
waiting. 


Ill 

THE   HOME   FIRESIDE 

WEEKS  ago  the  camp-fire  shed  its  last 
glow  in  the  deserted  camp,  its  last  thin 
thread  of  smoke  was  spun  out  and  van- 
ished in  the  silent  air,  and  black  brands 
and  gray  ashes  were  covered  in  the  even 
whiteness  of  the  snow.  The  unscared 
fox  prowls  above  them  in  curious  ex- 
ploration of  the  desolate  shanty,  where 
wood-mice  are  domiciled  and  to  whose 
sunny  side  the  partridge  comes  to  bask ; 
the  woodpecker  taps  unbidden  to  enter 
or  departs  from  the  always  open  door ; 
and  under  the  stars  that  glitter  through 
the  net  of  branches  the  owl  perches  on 
the  snowy  ridge  and  mopes  in  undis- 
turbed solemnity. 

For  a  time,  camping-days  are  over 
for  the  sportsman,  and  continue  only  for 
the  lumberman,  the  trapper,  and  the 
merciless  crust-hunter,  who  makes  his 
secret  lair  in  the  depths  of  the  forest, 
13 


THE   HOME   FIRESIDE 


In  the  chill  days  and  evenings  that  fall 
first  in  the  interim  between  winter  and 
summer  camping,  the  man  who  makes 
his  outings  for  sport  and  pleasure  must 
content  himself  by  his  own  fireside, 
whose  constant  flame  burns  throughout 
the  year. 

Well  may  he  be  content  when  the  un- 
tempered  winds  of  March  howl  like  a 
legion  of  wolves  at  his  door,  snow  and 
sleet  pelt  roof  and  pane  with  a  continu- 
ous volley  from  the  lowering  sky,  or 
when  the  chilly  silence  of  the  last  win- 
ter nights  is  broken  by  the  sharp  crack 
of  frozen  trees  and  timbers,  as  if  a  hid- 
den band  of  riflemen  were  besieging 
the  house.  Well  may  he  be  content, 
then,  with  the  snug  corner  of  his  own 
hearthstone,  around  which  are  gathered 
the  good  wife,  the  children,  and  his  camp 
companions,  the  dogs. 

Better  than  the  camp,  is  this  cosy  com- 
fort in  days  and  nights  such  as  these,  or 
in  those  that  fall  within  that  unnamed 
season  that  lies  between  winter  and 
spring,  when,  if  one  stirs  abroad,  his  feet 
have  sorry  choice  between  saturated 
snow  and  oozy  mould,  —  a  dismal  season 
14 


THE   HOME   FIRESIDE 


but  for  its  promise  of  brighter  days,  of 
free  streams,  green  trees,  and  bird  songs. 

Better,  now,  this  genial  glow  that 
warms  one's  marrow  than  the  camp-fire 
that  smokes  or  roasts  one's  front  while 
his  back  freezes.  With  what  perfect 
contentment  one  mends  his  tackle  and 
cleans  his  gun  for  coming  days  of  sport, 
while  the  good  wife  reads  racy  records 
of  camp-life  from  Maine  to  California, 
and  he  listens  with  attention  half  di- 
verted by  break  or  rust  spot,  or  with 
amused  watching  of  the  youngsters  play- 
ing at  camping  out.  The  callow  campers 
assail  him  with  demands  for  stories,  and 
he  goes  over,  for  their  and  his  own  en- 
joyment, old  experiences  in  camp  and 
field,  while  the  dogs  dream  by  the  fire 
of  sport  past  or  to  come,  —  for  none  but 
dogs  know  whether  dog's  dreams  run 
backward  or  forward. 

Long-used  rod  and  gun  suggest  many 
a  tale  of  past  adventure  as  they  bring  to 
mind  recollections  of  days  of  sport  such 
as  may  never  come  again.  The  great 
logs  in  the  fireplace  might  tell,  if  their 
naming  tongues  were  given  speech,  of 
camps  made  long  ago  beneath  their  lusty 
15 


THE   HOME   FIRESIDE 


branches,  and  of  such  noble  game  as  we 
shall  never  see,  —  moose,  elk,  deer,  pan- 
ther, wolf,  and  bear,  which  are  but  spec- 
tres in  the  shadowy  forest  of  the  past. 
But  the  red  tongues  only  roar  and  hiss 
as  they  lick  the  crackling  sinews  of  oak 
and  hickory,  and  tell  nothing  that  ordi- 
nary ears  may  catch.  Yet  one  is  apt  to 
fall  dreaming  of  bygone  days,  and  then 
of  days  that  may  come  to  be  spent  by 
pleasant  summer  waters  and  in  the  woods 
gorgeous  with  the  ripeness  of  autumn. 

So  one  is  like  to  dream  till  he  awakens 
and  finds  himself  left  with  only  the  dogs 
for  comrades,  before  the  flameless  em- 
bers, deserted  even  by  the  shadows  that 
erstwhile  played  their  grotesque  pranks 
behind  him.  Cover  the  coals  as  if  they 
were  to  kindle  to-morrow's  camp-fire,  put 
the  yawning  dogs  to  bed,  and  then  to 
bed  and  further  dreaming. 
16 


IV 

THE    CROW 

THE  robin's  impatient  yelp  not  yet  at- 
tuned to  happy  song,  the  song  sparrow's 
trill,  the  bluebird's  serene  melody,  do 
not  herald  the  coming  of  spring,  but  at- 
tend its  vanguard.  These  blithe  musi- 
cians accompany  the  soft  air  that  bares 
the  fields,  empurples  the  buds,  and  fans 
the  bloom  of  the  first  squirrelcups  and 
sets  the  hyla's  shrill  chime  a-ringing. 
*  Preceding  these,  while  the  fields  are 
yet  an  unbroken  whiteness  and  the  cop- 
ing of  the  drifts  maintain  the  fantastic 
grace  of  their  storm-built  shapes,  before 
a  recognized  waft  of  spring  is  felt  or  the 
voice  of  a  freed  stream  is  heard,  comes 
that  sable  pursuivant,  the  crow,  fighting 
his  way  against  the  fierce  north  wind, 
tossed  alow  and  aloft,  buffeted  to  this 
side  and  that,  yet  staggering  bravely  on- 
ward, and  sounding  his  trumpet  in  the 
face  of  his  raging  antagonist,  and  far  in 
X7 


THE   CROW 


advance  of  its  banners,  proclaiming 
spring. 

It  is  the  first  audible  promise  of  the 
longed-for  season,  and  it  heartens  us, 
though  there  be  weary  days  of  waiting 
for  its  fulfillment,  while  the  bold  herald 
is  beset  by  storm  and  pinched  with  hun- 
ger as  he  holds  his  outpost  and  gleans 
his  scant  rations  in  the  winter-desolated 
land. 

He  finds  some  friendliness  in  nature 
even  now.  Though  her  forces  assail  him 
with  relentless  fury,  she  gives  him  here 
the  shelter  of  her  evergreen  tents,  in 
windless  depths  of  woodland ;  bares  for 
him  there  a  rood  of  sward  or  stubble 
whereon  to  find  some  crumb  of  comfort; 
leaves  for  him  ungathered  apples  on  the 
naked  boughs,  and  on  the  unpruned 
tangles  of  vines  wild  grapes,  —  poor 
raisins  of  the  frost,  —  the  remnants  of 
autumnal  feasts  of  the  robins  and  par- 
tridges. 

Thankful  now  for  such  meagre  fare 
and  eager  for  the  fullness  of  disgusting 
repasts,  in  the  bounty  of  other  seasons, 
he  becomes  an  epicure  whom  only  the 
choicest  food  will  satisfy.  He  has  the 
18 


THE   CROW 


pick  of  the  fattest  grubs ;  he  makes 
stealthy  levies  on  the  earliest  robins' 
nests ;  and  from  some  lofty  lookout  or 
aerial  scout  watches  the  farmer  plant 
the  corn  and  awaits  its  sprouting  into 
the  dainty  tidbits,  a  fondness  for  whose 
sweetness  is  his  overmastering  weakness. 
For  this  he  braves  the  terrible  scarecrow 
and  the  dread  mystery  of  the  cornfield's 
lined  boundary,  for  this  risks  life  and 
forfeits  the  good  name  that  his  better 
deeds  might  give  him.  If  he  would  not 
be  tempted  from  grubs  and  carrion,  what 
a  worthy  bird  he  might  be  accounted. 
In  what  good  if  humble  repute  might  he 
live,  how  lamented,  die.  O  Appetite! 
thou  base  belly-denned  demon,  for  what 
sins  of  birds  and  men  art  thou  account- 
able! 

In  the  springtide  days,  the  crow  turns 
aside  from  theft  and  robbery  to  the 
softer  game  of  love,  whereunto  you  hear 
the  harsh  voice  attuned  in  cluttering 
notes.  After  the  wooing  the  pair  begin 
house  building  and  keeping. 

It  is  the  rudest  and  clumsiest  of  all 
bird  architecture  that  has  become  the 
centre  of  their  cares  —  such  a  jumble  of 
r9 


THE   CROW 


sticks  and  twigs  as  chance  might  pile  on 
its  forked  foundations  ;  but  woe  betide 
the  hawk  who  ventures  near,  or  owl  who 
dares  to  sound  his  hollow  trumpet  in 
the  sacred  precincts.  At  the  first  alarm 
signal,  as  suddenly  and  mysteriously  as 
Robin  Hood's  merry  men  appeared  at 
the  winding  of  his  horn,  the  black  clans- 
men rally  from  every  quarter  of  the 
greenwood,  to  assail  the  intruder  and 
force  him  to  ignominious  retreat. 

When  at  last  the  young  crows,  having 
clad  their  uncouth  nakedness  with  full 
sable  raiment,  are  abroad  in  the  world, 
they,  with  unwary  foolhardiness  and  in- 
cessant querulous  cries  of  hunger  or 
alarm,  are  still  a  constant  source  of  anx- 
iety to  parents  and  kindred.  But  in 
the  late  summer,  when  the  youngsters 
have  come  to  months  of  discretion  and 
the  elders  are  freed  from  the  bondage 
of  their  care,  a  long  holiday  begins  for 
all  the  tribe.  The  corn  has  long  since 
ceased  to  tempt  them,  and  the  persecu- 
tion of  man  has  abated.  The  shorn 
meadows  and  the  close-cropped  pastures 
swarm  with  grasshoppers,  and  field  and 
forest  offer  their  abundant  fruits. 


THE   CROW 


Careless  and  un cared  for,  what  happy 
lives  they  lead,  sauntering  on  sagging 
wing  through  the  sunshine  from  chosen 
field  to  chosen  wood,  and  at  nightfall 
encamping  in  the  fragrant  tents  of  the 
pines. 

At  last  the  gay  banners  of  autumn 
signal  departure,  and  the  gathered  clans 
file  away  in  straggling  columns,  flecking 
the  blue  sky  with  pulsating  dots  of  black- 
ness, the  green  earth  with  wavering 
shadows.  Sadly  we  watch  the  retreat  of 
the  sable  cohorts,  whose  desertion  leaves 
our  northern  homes  to  the  desolation  of 
winter. 

21 


THE    MINK 

THIS  little  fur-bearer,  whose  color  has 
been  painted  darker  than  it  is,  singularly 
making  his  name  proverbial  for  black- 
ness, is  an  old  acquaintance  of  the  an- 
gler and  the  sportsman,  but  not  so  famil- 
iar to  them  and  the  country  boy  as  it  was 
twoscore  years  ago. 

It  was  a  woeful  day  for  the  tribe  of 
the  mink  when  it  became  the  fashion  for 
other  folk  to  wear  his  coat,  which  he 
could  only  doff  with  the  subtler  garment 
of  life. 

Throughout  the  term  of  his  exalta- 
tion to  the  favor  of  fashion,  he  was  lain 
in  wait  for  at  his  own  door  and  on  his 
thoroughfares  and  by-paths  by  the  traps, 
dead-falls,  and  guns  of  professional  and 
amateur  trappers  and  hunters,  till  the 
fate  of  his  greater  cousin  the  otter 
seemed  to  overtake  him.  But  the  fickle 
empress  who  raised  him  to  such  perilous 


THE   MINK 


estate,  changing  her  mood,  thrust  him 
down  almost  to  his  old  ignoble  but  safer 
rank,  just  in  time  to  avert  the  impending 
doom  of  extermination.  Once  more  the 
places  that  knew  him  of  old,  know  him 
again. 

In  the  March  snow  you  may  trace  the 
long  span  of  his  parallel  footprints  where, 
hot  with  the  rekindled  annual  fire  of  love, 
he  has  sped  on  his  errant  wooing,  turn- 
ing not  aside  for  the  most  tempting  bait, 
halting  not  for  rest,  hungering  only  for 
a  sweetheart,  wearied  with  nothing  but 
loneliness.  Yet  weary  enough  would 
you  be  if  you  attempted  to  follow  the 
track  of  but  one  night's  wandering  along 
the  winding  brook,  through  the  tangle 
of  windfalls,  and  across  the  rugged  ledges 
that  part  stream  from  stream.  When 
you  go  fishing  in  the  first  days  of  sum- 
mer, you  may  see  the  fruits  of  this  early 
springtide  wooing  in  the  dusky  brood 
taking  their  primer-lesson  in  the  art  that 
their  primogenitors  were  adepts  in  be- 
fore yours  learned  it.  How  proud  one 
baby  fisher  is  of  his  first  captured  min- 
now, how  he  gloats  over  it  and  defends 
23 


THE   MINK 


his  prize  from  his  envious  and  less  fortu- 
•  nate  brothers. 

When  summer  wanes,  they  will  be  a 
scattered  family,  each  member  shifting 
for  himself.  Some  still  haunt  the  alder 
thicket  where  they  first  saw  light,  whose 
netted  shadows  of  bare  branches  have 
thickened  about  them  to  continued 
shade  of  leafage,  in  whose  midday  twi- 
light the  red  flame  of  the  cardinal  flower 
burns  as  a  beacon  set  to  guide  the  dusky 
wanderer  home.  Others  have  adven- 
tured far  down  the  winding  brook  to 
the  river,  and  followed  its  slowing  cur- 
rent, past  rapids  and  cataract,  to  where 
it  crawls  through  the  green  level  of 
marshes  beloved  of  water  fowl  and  of 
gunners,  whose  wounded  victims,  escap- 
ing them,  fall  an  easy  prey  to  the  lurk- 
ing mink. 

Here,  too,  in  their  season  are  the 
tender  ducklings  of  wood  duck,  teal,  and 
dusky  duck,  and,  all  the  year  round,  fat 
muskrats,  which  furnish  for  the  price  of 
conquest  a  banquet  that  the  mink  most 
delights  in.  » 

In  the  wooded  border  are  homes  ready 
builded  for  him  under  the  buttressed 
24 


THE   MINK 


trunks  of  elms,  or  in  the  hollow  boles  of 
old  water  maples,  and  hidden  pathways 
through  fallen  trees  and  under  low  green 
arches  of  ferns. 

With  such  a  home  and  such  bountiful 
provision  for  his  larder  close  at  hand, 
what  more  could  the  heart  and  stomach 
of  mink  desire  ?  Yet  he  may  not  be  sat- 
isfied, but  longs  for  the  wider  waters  of 
the  lake,  whose  translucent  depths  reveal 
to  him  all  who  swim  beneath  him,  fry  in- 
numerable ;  perch  displaying  their  scales 
of  gold,  shiners  like  silver  arrows  shot 
through  the  green  water,  the  lesser  bass 
peering  out  of  rocky  fastnesses,  all  attain- 
able to  this  daring  fisher,  but  not  his 
great  rivals,  the  bronze-mailed  bass  and 
the  mottled  pike,  whose  jaws  are  wide 
enough  to  engulf  even  him. 

Here,  while  you  rest  on  your  idle  oar 
or  lounge  with  useless  rod,  you  may  see 
him  gliding  behind  the  tangled  net  of 
cedar  roots,  or  venturing  forth  from  a 
cranny  of  the  rocks  down  to  the  brink, 
and  launching  himself  so  silently  that 
you  doubt  whether  it  is  not  a  flitting 
shadow  till  you  see  his  noiseless  wake 


THE   MINK 


breaking  the  reflections  lengthening  out 
behind  him. 

Of  all  swimmers  that  breathe  the  free 
air  none  can  compare  with  him  in  swift- 
ness and  in  a  grace  that  is  the  smooth 
and  even  flow  of  the  poetry  of  motion. 
Now  he  dives,  or  rather  vanishes  from 
the  surface,  nor  reappears  till  his  wake 
has  almost  flickered  out. 

His  voyage  accomplished,  he  at  once 
sets  forth  on  exploration  of  new  shores 
or  progress  through  his  established  do- 
main, and  vanishes  from  sight  before 
his  first  wet  footprints  have  dried  on  the 
warm  rock  where  he  landed. 

You  are  glad  to  have  seen  him,  thank- 
ful that  he  lives,  and  you  hope  that, 
sparing  your  chickens  and  your  share  of 
trout,  partridges,  and  wild  ducks,  he  too 
may  be  spared  from  the  devices  of  the 
trapper  to  fill  his  appointed  place  in  the 
world's  wildness. 

26 


VI 

APRIL   DAYS 

AT  last  there  is  full  and  complete  as- 
surance of  spring,  in  spite  of  the  bald- 
ness of  the  woods,  the  barrenness  of 
the  fields,  bleak  with  sodden  furrows  of 
last  year's  ploughing,  or  pallidly  tawny 
with  bleached  grass,  and  untidy  with  the 
jetsam  of  winter  storms  and  the  wide 
strewn  litter  of  farms  in  months  of  fod- 
dering and  wood-hauling. 

There  is  full  assurance  of  spring  in 
such  incongruities  as  a  phoebe  a-perch 
on  a  brown  mullein  stalk  in  the  midst  of 
grimy  snow  banks,  and  therefrom  swoop- 
ing in  airy  loops  of  flight  upon  the  flies 
that  buzz  across  this  begrimed  remnant 
of  winter's  ermine,  and  of  squirrelcups 
flaunting  bloom  and  fragrance  in  the  face 
of  an  ice  cascade,  which,  with  all  its  glit- 
ter gone,  hangs  in  dull  whiteness  down 
the  ledges,  greening  the  moss  with  the 
moisture  of  its  wasting  sheet  of  pearl. 
27 


APRIL   DAYS 


The  woodchuck  and  chipmunk  have 
got  on  top  of  the  world  again.  You 
hear  the  half  querulous,  half  chuckling 
whistle  of  the  one,  the  full-mouthed  per- 
sistent cluck  of  the  other,  voicing  recog- 
nition of  the  season. 

The  song  of  the  brooks  has  abated 
something  of  its  first  triumphant  swell, 
and  is  often  overborne  now  by  the  jubi- 
lant chorus  of  the  birds,  the  jangled, 
liquid  gurgle  and  raucous  grating  of  the 
blackbirds,  the  robin's  joyous  song  with 
its  frequent  breaks,  as  if  the  thronging 
notes  outran  utterance,  the  too  brief 
sweetness  of  the  meadowlark's  whistle, 
the  bluebird's  carol,  the  cheery  call  of 
the  phoebe,  the  trill  of  the  song  sparrow, 
and  above  them  all  the  triumph  of  the 
hawk  in  its  regained  possessions  of  north- 
ern sky  and  earth. 

The  woods  throb  with  the  muffled 
beat  of  the  partridge's  drum  and  the 
sharp  tattoo  of  the  woodpecker,  and  are 
filled  again  with  the  sounds  of  insect 
life,  the  spasmodic  hum  of  flies,  the 
droning  monotone  of  bees  busy  among 
the  catkins  and  squirrelcups,  and  you 
may  see  a  butterfly,  wavering  among  the 
28 


APRIL  DAYS 


gray  trees,  soon  to  come  to  the  end  of 
his  life,  brief  at  its  longest,  drowned  in 
the  seductive  sweets  of  a  sap  bucket. 

The  squirrels  are  chattering  over  the 
wine  of  the  maple  branches  they  have 
broached,  in  merrier  mood  than  the 
hare,  who  limps  over  the  matted  leaves 
in  the  raggedness  of  shifting  raiment, 
fitting  himself  to  a  new  inconspicuous- 
ness. 

We  shall  not  find  it  unpleasant  nor 
unprofitable  to  take  to  the  woods  now, 
for  we  may  be  sure  that  they  are  pleas- 
anter  than  the  untidy  fields.  Where 
nature  has  her  own  way  with  herself,  she 
makes  her  garb  seemly  even  now,  after 
all  the  tousling  and  rents  she  gave  it  in 
her  angry  winter  moods.  The  scraps  of 
moss,  bark,  and  twigs  with  which  the 
last  surface  of  the  snow  was  obtrusively 
littered  lie  now  unnoticed  on  the  flat- 
pressed  leaves,  an  umber  carpet  dotted 
here  with  flecks  of  moss,  there  sprigged 
with  fronds  of  evergreen  fern,  purple 
leaves  of  squirrelcups,  with  their  downy 
buds  and  first  blossoms.  Between  banks 
so  clad  the  brook  babbles  as  joyously  as 
amid  all  the  bloom  and  leafage  of  June, 
29 


APRIL  DAYS 


and  catches  a  brighter  gleam  from  the 
unobstructed  sunbeams.  So  befittingly 
are  the  trees  arrayed  in  graceful  tracery 
of  spray  and  beads  of  purpling  buds, 
that  their  seemly  nakedness  is  as  beau- 
tiful as  attire  of  summer's  greenness 
or  autumn's  gorgeousness  could  make 
them. 

Never  sweeter  than  now,  after  the 
long  silence  of  winter,  do  the  birds' 
songs  sound,  and  never  in  all  the  round 
of  the  year  is  there  a  better  time  to  see 
them  than  when  the  gray  haze  of  the 
branches  is  the  only  hiding  for  their  gay 
wedding  garments. 

If  you  would  try  your  skill  at  still- 
hunting,  follow  up  that  muffled  roll  that 
throbs  through  the  woods,  and  if  you 
discover  the  ruffed  grouse  strutting  upon 
his  favorite  log,  and  undiscovered  by 
him  can  watch  his  proud  performance, 
you  will  have  done  something  better 
worth  boasting  of  than  bringing  him  to 
earth  from  his  hurtling  flight. 

Out  of  the  distant  fields  come,  sweet 

and  faint,  the  call   of  the   meadowlark 

and  the  gurgle  of    the  blackbirds  that 

throng  the  brookside  elms.     From  high 

3° 


APRIL  DAYS 


overhead  come  down  the  clarion  note  of 
the  goose,  the  sibilant  beat  of  the  wild 
ducks'  wings,  the  bleat  of  the  snipe  and 
the  plover's  cry,  each  making  his  way  to 
northern  breeding  grounds.  Are  you  not 
glad  they  are  going  as  safely  as  their  un- 
caught  shadows  that  sweep  swiftly  across 
the  shadowy  meshes  of  the  forest  floor  ? 
Are  you  not  content  to  see  what  you  see, 
hear  what  you  hear,  and  kill  nothing  but 
time  ? 

Verily,  you  shall  have  a  clearer  con- 
science than  if  you  were  disturbing  the 
voice  of  nature  with  the  discordant  up- 
roar of  your  gun,  and  marring  the  fresh 
odors  of  spring  with  the  fumes  of  villain- 
ous saltpetre. 

In  the  open  marshes  the  lodges  of  the 
muskrats  have  gone  adrift  in  the  floods  ; 
but  the  unhoused  inmates  count  this  a 
light  misfortune,  since  they  may  voyage 
again  with  heads  above  water,  and  go 
mate-seeking  and  food-gathering  in  sun- 
shine and  starlight,  undimmed  by  roof 
of  ice.  As  you  see  them  cutting  the 
smooth  surface  with  long,  swift,  arrowy 
wakes,  coasting  the  low  shore  in  quest  of 
brown  sweethearts  and  wives,  whimper- 
31 


APRIL   DAYS 


ing  their  plaintive  call,  you  can  hardly 
imagine  the  clumsy  body  between  that 
grim  head  and  rudder-like  tail  capable 
of  such  graceful  motion. 

The  painted  wood  drake  swims  above 
the  submerged  tree  roots ;  a  pair  of  dusky 
ducks  splash  to  flight,  with  a  raucous 
clamor,  out  of  a  sedgy  cove  at  your  ap- 
proach; the  thronging  blackbirds  shower 
liquid  melody  and  hail  of  discord  from 
the  purple  -  budded  maples  above  you. 
All  around,  from  the  drift  of  floating  and 
stranded  water  weeds,  arises  the  dry, 
crackling  croak  of  frogs,  and  from  sunny 
pools  the  vibrant  trill  of  toads. 

From  afar  come  the  watery  boom  of  a 
bittern,  the  song  of  a  trapper  and  the 
hollow  clang  of  his  setting  pole  dropping 
athwart  the  gunwales  of  his  craft,  the 
distant  roar  of  a  gun  and  the  echoes 
rebounding  from  shore  to  shore. 

The  grateful  odor  of  the  warming 
earth  comes  to  your  nostrils  ;  to  your 
ears,  from  every  side,  the  sounds  of 
spring  ;  and  yet  you  listen  for  fuller  con- 
firmation of  its  presence  in  the  long-drawn 
wail  of  the  plover  and  the  rollicking 
melody  of  the  bobolink. 
32 


VII 

THE    WOODCHUCK 

CHANCING  to  pass  a  besmirched  April 
snowbank  on  the  border  of  a  hollow,  you 
see  it  marked,. with  the  footprints  of  an 
old  acquaintance  of  whom  for  months 
you  have  not  seen  even  so  much  as  this. 

It  is  not  that  he  made  an  autumnal 
pilgrimage,  slowly  following  the  swift 
birds  and  the  retreating  sun,  that  you 
had  no  knowledge  of  him,  but  because  of 
his  home-keeping,  closer  than  a  hermit's 
seclusion.  These  few  cautious  steps, 
venturing  but  half  way  from  his  door  to 
the  tawny  naked  grass  that  is  daily  edg- 
ing nearer  to  his  threshold,  are  the  first 
he  has  taken  abroad  since  the  last  bright 
lingering  leaf  fluttered  down  in  the  In- 
dian summer  haze,  or  perhaps  since  the 
leaves  put  on  their  first  autumnal  tints. 

He  had  seen  all  the  best  of  the  year, 
the  blooming  of  the  first  flowers,  the 
springing  of  the  grass  and  its  growth, 
33 


THE  WOODCHUCK 


the  gathering  of  the  harvests  and  the 
ripening  of  fruits,  and  possibly  the  gor- 
geousness  of  autumn  melting  into  sombre 
gray.  He  had  heard  all  the  glad  songs 
of  all  the  birds  and  the  sad  notes  of  fare- 
well of  bobolink  and  plover  to  their  sum- 
mer home ;  he  had  seen  the  swallows 
depart  and  had  heard  the  droning  of  the 
bumblebee  among  the  earliest  and  latest 
of  his  own  clover  blossoms.  All  the 
best  the  world  had  to  give  in  the  round 
of  her  seasons,  luxuriant  growth  to  feed 
upon,  warm  sunshine  to  bask  in,  he  had 
enjoyed;  of  her  worst,  he  would  have  none. 
So  he  bade  farewell  to  the  gathering 
desolation  of  the  tawny  fields  and  crept 
closer  to  the  earth's  warm  heart  to  sleep 
through  the  long  night  of  winter,  till  the 
morning  of  spring.  The  wild  scurry  of 
wind-tossed  leaves  swept  above  him  un- 
heard, and  the  pitiless  beat  of  autumnal 
rain  and  the  raging  of  winter  storms  that 
heaped  the  drifts  deeper  and  deeper  over 
his  forsaken  door.  The  bitterness  of 
cold,  that  made  the  furred  fox  and  the 
muffled  owl  shiver,  never  touched  him 
in  his  warm  nest.  So  he  shirked  the 
hardships  of  winter  without  the  toil  of  a 
34 


THE    WOODCHUCK 


journey  in  pursuit  of  summer,  while  the 
starved  fox  prowled  in  the  desolate  woods 
and  barren  fields,  the  owl  hunted  beneath 
the  cold  stars,  and  the  squirrel  delved  in 
the  snow  for  his  meagre  fare. 

By  and  by  the  ethereal  but  potent  spirit 
of  spring  stole  in  where  the  frost-elves 
could  not  enter,  and  awakening  the  earth 
awakened  him.  Not  by  a  slow  and  often 
impeded  invasion  of  the  senses,  but  as  by 
the  sudden  opening  of  a  door,  he  sees  the 
naked  earth  again  warming  herself  in  the 
sun,  and  hears  running  water  and  singing 
birds.  No  wonder  that  with  such  surprise 
the  querulous  tremolo  of  his  whistle  is 
sharply  mingled  with  these  softer  voices. 

Day  by  day  as  he  sees  the  sun-loved 
banks  blushing  greener,  he  ventures  fur- 
ther forth  to  visit  neighbors  or  watch  his 
clover,  or  dig  a  new  home  in  a  more  fa- 
vored bank,  or  fortify  himself  in  some 
rocky  stronghold  where  boys  and  dogs 
may  not  enter.  Now,  the  family  may 
be  seen  moving,  with  no  burden  of  furni- 
ture or  provision,  but  only  the  mother 
with  her  gray  cubs,  carried  as  a  cat  car- 
ries her  kittens,  one  by  one  to  the  new 
home  among  the  fresher  clover. 
35 


THE  WOODCHUCK 


On  the  mound  of  newly  digged  earth 
before  it,  is  that  erect,  motionless,  gray 
and  russet  form  a  half  decayed  stump 
uprising  where  no  tree  has  grown  within 
your  memory  ?  You  move  a  little  nearer 
to  inspect  the  strange  anomaly,  and  lo ! 
it  vanishes,  and  you  know  it  was  your 
old  acquaintance,  the  woodchuck,  stand- 
ing guard  at  his  door  and  overlooking 
his  green  and  blossoming  domain. 

Are  you  not  sorry,  to-day  at  least,  to 
hear  the,  boys  and  the  dog  besieging 
him  in  his  burrow  or  in  the  old  stone 
wall  wherein  he  has  taken  sanctuary? 
Surely,  the  first  beautiful  days  of  his 
open-air  life  should  not  be  made  so  mis- 
erable that  he  would  wish  himself  asleep 
again  in  the  safety  and  darkness  of  win- 
ter. But  you  remember  that  you  were 
once  a  boy,  and  your  sympathies  are  di- 
vided between  the  young  savages  and 
their  intended  prey,  which  after  all  is 
likelier  than  not  to  escape. 

He  will  tangle  the  meadow-grass  and 
make  free  with  the  bean  patch  if  he 
chances  upon  it,  yet  you  are  glad  to  see 
the  woodchuck,  rejoicing  like  yourself  in 
the  advent  of  spring. 
36 


VIII 

THE   CHIPMUNK 

As  the  woodchuck  sleeps  away  the 
bitterness  of  cold,  so  in  his  narrower 
chamber  sleeps  the  chipmunk.  Happy 
little  hermit,  lover  of  the  sun,  mate  of 
the  song  sparrow  and  the  butterflies, 
what  a  goodly  and  hopeful  token  of  the 
earth's  renewed  life  is  he,  verifying  the 
promises  of  his  own  chalices,  the  squir- 
relcups,  set  in  the  warmest  corners  of 
the  woodside,  with  libations  of  dew  and 
shower  drops,  of  the  bluebird's  carol,  the 
sparrow's  song  of  spring. 

Now  he  comes  forth  from  his  long 
night  into  the  fullness  of  sunlit  day,  to 
proclaim  his  awakening  to  his  summer 
comrades,  a  gay  recluse  clad  all  in  the 
motley,  a  jester,  maybe,  yet  no  fool. 

His   voice,    for   all    its   monotony,    is 

inspiring  of  gladness  and  contentment, 

whether  he  utters  his  thin,  sharp  chip  or 

full-mouthed  cluck,  or  laughs  a  chittering 

37 


THE   CHIPMUNK 


mockery  as  he  scurries  in  at  his  narrow 
door. 

He  winds  along  his  crooked  pathway 
of  the  fence  rails  and  forages  for  half- 
forgotten  nuts  in  the  familiar  grounds, 
brown  with  strewn  leaves  or  dun  with 
dead  grass.  Sometimes  he  ventures  to 
the  top  rail  and  climbs  to  a  giddy  ten- 
foot  height  on  a  tree,  whence  he  looks 
abroad,  wondering,  on  the  wide  expanse 
of  an  acre. 

Music  hath  charms  for  him,  and  you 
may  entrance  him  with  a  softly  whistled 
tune  and  entice'  him  to  frolic  with  a 
herds-grass  head  gently  moved  before 
him. 

When  the  fairies  have  made  the  white 
curd  of  mallow  blossoms  into  cheeses 
for  the  children  and  the  chipmunk,  it 
is  a  pretty  sight  to  see  him  gathering 
his  share  handily  and  toothily  stripping 
off  the  green  covers,  filling  his  cheek 
pouches  with  the  dainty  disks  and  scam- 
pering away  to  his  cellar  with  his  un- 
grudged  portion.  Alack  the  day,  when 
the  sweets  of  the  sprouting  corn  tempt 
him  to  turn  rogue,  for  then  he  becomes 
a  banned  outlaw,  and  the  sudden  thun- 
38 


THE   CHIPMUNK 


der  of  the  gun  announces  his  tragic  fate. 
He  keeps  well  the  secret  of  constructing 
his  cunning  house,  without  a  show  of 
heaped  or  scattered  soil  at  its  entrance. 
Bearing  himself  honestly,  and  escaping 
his  enemies,  the  cat,  the  hawk,  and  the 
boy,  he  lives  a  long  day  of  happy  inof- 
fensive life.  Then  when  the  filmy  cur- 
tain of  the  Indian  summer  falls  upon  the 
year  again,  he  bids  us  a  long  good-night. 
39 


IX 

SPRING   SHOOTING 

THE  Ram  makes  way  for  the  Bull ; 
March  goes  out  and  April  comes  in  with 
sunshine  and  showers,  smiles  and  tears. 
The  sportsman  has  his  gun  in  hand 
again  with  deadly  purpose,  as  the  angler 
his  rod  and  tackle  with  another  inten- 
tion than  mere  overhauling  and  putting 
to  rights.  The  smiles  of  April  are  for 
them. 

The  geese  come  wedging  their  way 
northward  ;  the  ducks  awaken  the  silent 
marshes  with  the  whistle  of  their  pin- 
ions ;  the  snipe  come  in  pairs  and  wisps 
to  the  thawing  bogs  —  all  on  their  way 
to  breeding  grounds  and  summer  homes. 
The  tears  of  April  are  for  them.  Wher- 
ever they  stop  for  a  day's  or  an  hour's 
rest,  and  a  little  food  to  strengthen  and 
hearten  them  for  their  long  journey,  the 
deadly,  frightful  gun  awaits  to  kill,  maim, 
or  terrify,  more  merciless  than  all  the 
40 


SPRING   SHOOTING 


ills  that  nature  inflicts  in  her  unkindest 
moods. 

Year  after  year  men  go  on  making 
laws  and  crying  for  more,  to  protect 
these  fowl  in  summer,  but  in  spring, 
when  as  much  as  ever  they  need  pro- 
tection, the  hand  of  man  is  ruthlessly 
against  them. 

When  you  made  that  splendid  shot 
last  night  in  the  latest  gloaming  that 
would  show  you  the  sight  of  your  gun, 
and  cut  down  that  ancient  goose,  tougher 
than  the  leather  of  your  gun-case,  and 
almost  as  edible,  of  how  many  well-grown 
young  geese  of  next  November  did  you 
cheat  yourself,  or  some  one  else  of  the 
brotherhood  ? 

When  from  the  puddle,  where  they 
were  bathing  their  tired  wings,  sipping 
the  nectar  of  muddy  water,  and  nibbling 
the  budding  leaves  of  water  weeds,  you 
started  that  pair  of  ducks  yesterday,  and 
were  so  proud  of  tumbling  them  down 
right  and  left,  you  killed  many  more 
than  you  saw  then ;  many  that  you 
might  have  seen  next  fall. 

When  the  sun  was  shining  down  so 
warm  upon  the  steaming  earth  that  the 
41 


SPRING  SHOOTING 


robins  and  bluebirds  sang  May  songs, 
those  were  very  good  shots  you  made, 
killing  ten  snipe  straight  and  clean,  and 
—  they  were  very  bad  shots.  For  in 
November  the  ten  might  have  been  four 
times  ten  fat  and  lusty,  lazy  fellows, 
boring  the  oozy  margins  of  these  same 
pools  where  the  frogs  are  croaking  and 
the  toads  are  singing  to-day. 

"  Well,  it 's  a  long  time  to  wait  from 
November  till  the  earth  ripens  and 
browns  to  autumn  again.  Life  is  short 
and  shooting  days  are  few  at  most.  Let 
us  shoot  our  goose  while  we  may,  though 
she  would  lay  a  golden  egg  by  and  by." 

Farmers  do  not  kill  their  breeding 
ewes  in  March,  nor  butcher  cows  that 
are  to  calve  in  a  month  ;  it  does  not  pay. 
Why  should  sportsmen  be  less  provident 
of  the  stock  they  prize  so  dearly ;  stock 
that  has  so  few  care-takers,  so  many 
enemies  ?  Certainly,  it  does  not  pay  in 
the  long  run. 

42 


THE    GARTER-SNAKE 

WHEN  the  returned  crows  have  become 
such  familiar  objects  in  the  forlorn  un- 
clad landscape  of  early  spring  that  they 
have  worn  out  their  first  welcome,  and 
the  earliest  songbirds  have  come  to  stay 
in  spite  of  inhospitable  weather  that 
seems  for  days  to  set  the  calendar  back 
a  month,  the  woods  invite  you  more  than 
the  fields.  There  nature  is  least  under 
man's  restraint  and  gives  the  first  signs 
of  her  reawakening.  In  windless  nooks 
the  sun  shines  warmest  between  the 
meshes  of  the  slowly  drifting  net  of 
shadows. 

There  are  patches  of  moss  on  gray 
rocks  and  tree  trunks.  Fairy  islands  of 
it,  that  will  not  be  greener  when  they  are 
wet  with  summer  showers,  arise  among 
the  brown  expanse  of  dead  leaves.  The 
gray  mist  of  branches  and  undergrowth  is 
enlivened  with  a  tinge  of  purple.  Here 
43 


THE   GARTER-SNAKE 


and  there  the  tawny  mat  beneath  is  up- 
lifted by  the  struggling  plant  life  below 
it  or  pierced  through  by  an  underthrust 
of  a  sprouting  seed.  There  is  a  prom- 
ise of  bloom  in  blushing  arbutus  buds, 
a  promise  even  now  fulfilled  by  the  first 
squirrelcups  just  out  of  their  furry  bracts 
and  already  calling  the  bees  abroad. 
Flies  are  buzzing  to  and  fro  in  busy 
idleness,  and  a  cricket  stirs  the  leaves 
with  a  sudden  spasm  of  movement.  The 
first  of  the  seventeen  butterflies  that  shall 
give  boys  the  freedom  of  bare  feet  goes 
wavering  past  like  a  drifting  blossom. 

A  cradle  knoll  invites  you  to  a  seat  on 
the  soft,  warm  cushion  of  dead  leaves 
and  living  moss  and  purple  sprigs  of 
wintergreen  with  their  blobs  of  scarlet 
berries,  which  have  grown  redder  and 
plumper  under  every  snow  of  the  winter. 
This  smoothly  rounded  mound  and  the 
hollow  scooped  beside  it,  brimful  now  of 
amber,  sun-warmed  water,  mark  the  an- 
cient place  of  a  great  tree  that  was  dead 
and  buried,  and  all  traces  by  which  its 
kind  could  be  identified  were  mouldered 
away  and  obliterated,  before  you  were 
born. 

44 


THE   GARTER-SNAKE 


The  incessant  crackling  purr  of  the 
wood-frogs  is  interrupted  at  your  ap- 
proach, and  they  disappear  till  the 
wrinkled  surface  of  the  oblong  pool 
grows  smooth  again  and  you  perceive 
them  sprawled  along  the  bottom  on  the 
leaf  paving  of  their  own  color.  As  you 
cast  a  casual  glance  on  your  prospective 
seat,  carelessly  noting  the  mingling  of 
many  hues,  the  brightness  of  the  berries 
seems  most  conspicuous,  till  a  moving 
curved  and  recurved  gleam  of  gold  on 
black  and  a  flickering  flash  of  red  catch 
your  eye  and  startle  you  with  an  invol- 
untary revulsion. 

With  charmed  eyes  held  by  this  new 
object,  you  grope  blindly  for  a  stick  or 
stone.  But,  if  you  find  either,  forbear 
to  strike.  Do  not  blot  out  one  token  of 
spring's  awakening  nor  destroy  one  life 
that  rejoices  in  it,  even  though  it  be  so 
humble  a  life  as  that  of  a  poor  garter- 
snake.  He  is  so  harmless  to  man,  that, 
were  it  not  for  the  old,  unreasoning  an- 
tipathy, our  hands  would  not  be  raised 
against  him  ;  and,  if  he  were  not  a  snake, 
we  should  call  him  beautiful  in  his  stripes 
of  black  and  gold,  and  in  graceful  motion 
45 


THE   GARTER-SNAKE 


—  a  motion  that  charms  us  in  the  undu- 
lation of  waves,  in  their  flickering  reflec- 
tions of  sunlight  on  rushy  margins  and 
wooded  shores,  in  the  winding  of  a  brook 
through  a  meadow,  in  the  flutter  of  a 
pennant  and  the  flaunting  of  a  banner, 
the  ripple  of  wind-swept  meadow  and 
grain  field,  and  the  sway  of  leafy  boughs. 
His  colors  are  fresh  and  bright  as  ever 
you  will  see  them,  though  he  has  but  to- 
day awakened  from  a  long  sleep  in  con- 
tinual darkness. 

He  is  simply  enjoying  the  free  air  and 
warm  sunshine  without  a  thought  of 
food  for  all  his  months  of  fasting.  Per- 
haps he  has  forgotten  that  miserable  ne- 
cessity of  existence.  When  at  last  he 
remembers  that  he  has  an  appetite,  you 
can  scarcely  imagine  that  he  can  have 
any  pleasure  in  satisfying  it  with  one 
huge  mouthful  of  twice  or  thrice  the 
ordinary  diameter  of  his  gullet.  If  you 
chance  to  witness  his  slow  and  painful 
gorging  of  a  frog,  you  hear  a  cry  of  dis- 
tress that  might  be  uttered  with  equal 
cause  by  victim  or  devourer.  When  he 
has  fully  entered  upon  the  business  of 
reawakened  life,  many  a  young  field- 
46 


THE   GARTER-SNAKE 


mouse  and  noxious  insect  will  go  into 
his  maw  to  his  own  and  your  benefit. 
If  there  go  also  some  eggs  and  cal- 
low young  of  ground-nesting  birds,  why 
should  you  question  his  right,  you,  who  de- 
fer slaughter  out  of  pure  selfishness,  that 
a  little  later  you  may  make  havoc  among 
the  broods  of  woodcock  and  grouse  ? 

Of  all  living  things,  only  man  disturbs 
the  nicely  adjusted  balance  of  nature. 
The  more  civilized  he  becomes  the  more 
mischievous  he  is.  The  better  he  calls 
himself,  the  worse  he  is.  For  uncounted 
centuries  the  bison  and  the  Indian 
shared  a  continent,  but  in  two  hundred 
years  or  so  the  white  man  has  destroyed 
the  one  and  spoiled  the  other. 

Surely  there  is  little  harm  in  this 
lowly  bearer  of  a  name  honored  in 
knighthood,  and  the  motto  of  the  noble 
order  might  be  the  legend  written  on 
his  gilded  mail,  '.'Evil  to  him  who  evil 
thinks."  If  this  sunny  patch  of  earth  is 
not  wide  enough  for  you  to  share  with 
him,  leave  it  to  him  and  choose  another 
for  yourself.  The  world  is  wide  enough 
for  both  to  enjoy  this  season  of  its  prom- 
ise. 

47 


XI 

THE    TOAD 

DURING  our  summer  acquaintance 
with  her,  when  we  see  her  oftenest,  a 
valued  inhabitant  of  our  garden  and  a 
welcome  twilight  visitor  at  our  threshold, 
we  associate  silence  with  the  toad,  almost 
as  intimately  as  with  the  proverbially 
silent  clam.  In  the  drouthy  or  too  moist 
summer  days  and  evenings,  she  never 
awakens  our  hopes  or  fears  with  shrill 
prophecies  of  rain  as  does  her  nimbler 
.and  more  aspiring  cousin,  the  tree-toad. 

A  rustle  of  the  cucumber  leaves  that 
embower  her  cool  retreat,  the  spat  and 
shuffle  of  her  short,  awkward  leaps,  are 
the  only  sounds  that  then  betoken  her 
presence,  and  we  listen  in  vain  for  even 
a  smack  of  pleasure  or  audible  expres- 
sion of  self-approval,  when,  after  a  ner- 
vous, gratulatory  wriggle  of  her  hinder 
toes,  she  dips  forward  and,  with  a  light- 
ning-like out-flashing  of  her  unerring 
48 


THE  TOAD 


tongue,  she  flicks  into  her  jaws  a  fly  or 
bug.  She  only  winks  contentedly  to 
express  complete  satisfaction  at  her  per- 
formance and  its  result. 

Though  summer's  torrid  heat  cannot 
warm  her  to  any  voice,  springtime  and 
love  make  her  tuneful,  and  every  one 
hears  the  softly  trilled,  monotonous  song 
jarring  the  mild  air,  but  few  know  who 
is  the  singer.  The  drumming  grouse 
is  not  shyer  of  exhibiting  his  perform- 
ance. 

From  a  sun-warmed  pool  not  fifty 
yards  away  a  full  chorus  of  the  rapidly 
vibrant  voices  arises,  and  you  imagine 
that  the  performers  are  so  absorbed  with 
their  music  that  you  may  easily  draw 
near  and  observe  them.  But  when  you 
come  to  the  edge  of  the  pool  you  see 
only  a  half-dozen  concentric  circles  of 
wavelets,  widening  from  central  points, 
where  as  many  musicians  have  modestly 
withdrawn  beneath  the  transparent  cur- 
tain. 

Wait,  silent  and  motionless,  and  they 

will  reappear.     A  brown  head  is  thrust 

above   the   surface,  and  presently  your 

last    summer's   familiar  of    the    garden 

49 


THE   TOAD 


and  doorstep  crawls  slowly  out  upon  a 
barren  islet  of  cobble-stone,  and,  assured 
that  no  intruder  is  within  the  precincts 
sacred  to  the  wooing  of  the  toads,  she  in- 
flates her  throat  and  tunes  up  her  long, 
monotonous  chant.  Ere  it  ceases,  an- 
other and  another  take  it  up,  and  from 
distant  pools  you  hear  it  answered,  till 
all  the  air  is  softly  shaken  as  if  with 
the  clear  chiming  of  a  hundred  swift- 
struck,  tiny  bells.  They  ring  in  the  re- 
turning birds,  robin,  sparrow,  finch  and 
meadow  lark,  and  the  first  flowers,  squir- 
relcup,  arbutus,  bloodroot,  adder-tongue 
and  moose-flower. 

When  the  bobolink  has  come  to  his 
northern  domain  again  and  the  oriole 
flashes  through  the  budding  elms  and 
the  first  columbine  droops  over  the  gray 
ledges,  you  may  still  hear  an  occasional 
ringing  of  the  toads,  but  a  little  later  the 
dignified  and  matronly  female,  having 
lost  her  voice  altogether,  has  returned 
to  her  summer  home,  while  her  little 
mate  has  exchanged  his  trill  for  a  dis- 
agreeable and  uncanny  squawk,  perhaps 
a  challenge  to  his  rivals,  who  linger 
5° 


THE  TOAD 


about  the  scenes  of  their  courtship  and 
make  night  hideous  until  midsummer. 
Then  a  long  silence  falls  on  the  race  of 
toads  —  a  silence  which  even  hibernation 
scarcely  deepens. 

5' 


XII 

MAY   DAYS 

THE  lifeless  dun  of  the  close-cropped 
southward  slopes  and  the  tawny  tangles 
of  the  swales  are  kindling  to  living  green 
with  the  blaze  of  the  sun  and  the  moist 
tinder  of  the  brook's  overflow. 

The  faithful  swallows  have  returned, 
though  the  faithless  season  delays.  The 
flicker  flashes  his  golden  shafts  in  the 
sunlight  and  gladdens  the  ear  with  his 
merry  cackle.  The  upland  plover  wails 
his  greeting  to  the  tussocked  pastures, 
where  day  and  night  rings  the  shrill 
chorus  of  the  hylas  and  the  trill  of  the 
toads  continually  trembles  in  the  soft 
air. 

The  first  comers  of  the  birds  are  al- 
ready mated  and  nest-building,  robin  and 
song  sparrow  each  in  his  chosen  place 
setting  the  foundations  of  his  house  with 
mud  or  threads  of  dry  grass.  The  crow 
clutters  out  his  softest  love  note.  The 
S2 


MAY   DAYS 


flicker  is  mining  a  fortress  in  the  heart  of 
an  old  apple-tree. 

The  squirrels  wind  a  swift  ruddy  chain 
about  a  boll  in  their  love  chase,  and 
even  now  you  may  surprise  the  vixen 
fox  watching  the  first  gambols  of  her 
tawny  cubs  by  the  sunny  border  of  the 
woods. 

The  gray  haze  of  undergrowth  and 
lofty  ramage  is  turning  to  a  misty  green, 
and  the  shadows  of  opening  buds  knot 
the  meshed  shadows  of  twigs  on  the 
brown  forest  floor,  which  is  splashed  with 
white  moose-flowers  and  buds  of  blood- 
root,  like  ivory-tipped  arrows,  each  in  a 
green  quiver,  and  yellow  adder-tongues 
bending  above  their  mottled  beds,  and 
rusty  trails  of  arbutus  leaves  leading  to 
the  secret  of  their  hidden  bloom,  which 
their  fragrance  half  betrays. 

Marsh  marigolds  lengthen  their  golden 
chain,  link  by  linkx  along  the  ditches. 
The  maples  are  yellow  with  paler  bloom, 
and  the  graceful  birches  are  bent  with 
their  light  burden  of  tassels.  The  dande- 
lion answers  the  sun,  the  violet  the  sky. 
Blossom  and  greenness  are  everywhere ; 
even  the  brown  paths  of  the  plough 
53 


MAY   DAYS 


and  harrow  are  greening  with  springing 
grain. 

We  listen  to  the  cuckoo's  monotonous 
flute  among  the  white  drifts  of  orchard 
bloom  and  the  incessant  murmur  of  bees, 
the  oriole's  half  plaintive  carol  as  of  de- 
parted joys  in  the  elms,  and  the  jubilant 
song  of  the  bobolink  in  the  meadows, 
where  he  is  not  an  outlaw  but  a  welcome 
guest,  mingling  his  glad  notes  with  the 
merry  voices  of  flower-gathering  children, 
as  by  and  by  he  will  with  the  ringing  ca- 
dence of  the  scythe  and  the  vibrant  chirr 
of  the  mower.  Down  by  the  flooded 
marshes  the  scarlet  of  the  water  maples 
and  the  flash  of  the  starling's  wing  are 
repeated  in  the  broad  mirror  of  the  still 
water.  The  turtle  basks  on  the  long  in- 
cline of  stranded  logs. 

Tally-sticks  cast  adrift  are  a  symbol 
that  the  trapper's  warfare  against  the 
muskrats  is  ended  and  that  the  decimated 
remnant  of  the  tribe  is  left  in  peace  to 
reestablish  itself.  The  spendthrift  waste 
of  untimely  shooting  is  stayed.  Wild 
duck,  plover,  and  snipe  have  entered 
upon  the  enjoyment  of  a  summer  truce 
that  will  be  unbroken,  if  the  collector  is 
54 


MAY   DAYS 


not  abroad  at  whose  hands  science  ruth- 
lessly demands  mating  birds  and  callow 
brood. 

Of  all  sportsmen  only  the  angler,  often 
attended  by  his  winged  brother  the 
kingfisher,  is  astir,  wandering  by  pleas- 
ant waters  where  the  bass  lurks  in  the 
tangles  of  an  eddy's  writhing  currents, 
or  the  perch  poises  and  then  glides 
through  the  intangible  golden  meshes 
that  waves  and  sunlight  knit,  or  where 
the  trout  lies  poised  beneath  the  silver 
domes  of  foam  bells. 

The  loon  laughs  again  on  the  lake. 
Again  the  freed  waves  toss  the  shadows 
of  the  shores  and  the  white  reflections 
of  white  sails,  and  flash  back  the  sun- 
light or  the  glitter  of  stars  and  the  bea- 
con's rekindled  gleam. 

Sun  and  sky,  forest,  field,  and  water, 
bird  and  blossom,  declare  the  fullness  of 
spring  and  the  coming  of  summer. 
55 


XIII 

THE    BOBOLINK 

THE  woods  have  changed  from  the 
purple  of  swelling  buds  to  •  the  tender 
grayish  green  of  opening  leaves,  and  the 
sward  is  green  again  with  new  grass, 
when  this  pied  troubadour,  more  faithful 
to  the  calendar  than  leaf  or  flower,  comes 
back  from  his  southern  home  to  New 
England  meadows  to  charm  others  than 
his  dusky  ladylove  with  his  merry  song. 
He  seldom  disappoints  us  by  more  than 
a  day  in  the  date  of  his  arrival,  and  never 
fails  to  receive  a  kindly  welcome,  though 
the  fickle  weather  may  be  unkind. 

"  The  bobolinks  have  come  "  is  as  joy- 
ful a  proclamation  as  announces  the  re- 
turn of  the  bluebird  and  robin.  Here  no 
shotted  salute  of  gun  awaits  him,  and  he 
is  aware  that  he  is  in  a  friendly  country. 
Though  he  does  not  court  familiarity,  he 
tolerates  approach;  and  permits  you  to 
come  within  a  dozen  yards  of  the  fence 
56 


THE   BOBOLINK 


stake  he  has  alighted  on,  and  when  you 
come  nearer  he  goes  but  to  the  next, 
singing  the  prelude  or  finale  of  his  song 
as  he  flies.  Fewer  yards  above  your 
head  he  poises  on  wing  to  sing  it  from 
beginning  to  end,  you  know  not  whether 
with  intent  to  taunt  you  or  to  charm  you, 
but  he  only  accomplishes  the  latter.  He 
seems  to  know  that  he  does  not  harm 
us  and  that  he  brings  nothing  that  we 
should  not  lose  by  killing  him.  Yet 
how  cunningly  he  and  his  mate  hide 
their  nest  in  the  even  expanse  of  grass. 
That  is  a  treasure  he  will  not  trust  us 
with  the  secret  of,  and,  though  there 
may  be  a  dozen  in  the  meadow,  we 
rarely  find  one. 

Our  New  England  fathers  had  as 
kindly  a  feeling  for  this  blithe  comer  to 
their  stumpy  meadows,  though  they  gave 
him  the  uncouth  and  malodorous  name 
of  skunk  blackbird.  He  sang  as  sweetly 
to  them  as  he  does  to  us,  and  he  too  was 
a  discoverer  and  a  pioneer,  finding  and 
occupying  meadows  full  of  sunshine 
where  had  only  been  the  continual  shade 
of  the  forest,  where  no  bobolink  had 
ever  been  before.  Now  he  has  miles  of 
57 


THE   BOBOLINK 


grassy  sunlit  fields  wherein  he  sings  vio- 
let and  buttercup,  daisy  and  clover  into 
bloom  and  strawberries  into  ripeness, 
and  his  glad  song  mingles  with  the, 
happy  voices  of  the  children  who  come 
to  gather  them,  and  also  chimes  with  the 
rarer  music  of  the  whetted  scythe. 

Then,  long  before  the  summer  is  past, 
he  assumes  the  sober  dress  of  his  mate 
and  her  monosyllabic  note,  and  fades  so 
gradually  out  of  our  sight  and  hearing 
that  he  departs  without  our  being  aware 
of  it.  Summer  still  burns  with  unabated 
fervor,  when  we  suddenly  realize  that 
there  are  no  bobolinks.  Nor  are  there 
any  under  the  less  changeful  skies 
whither  our  changed  bird  has  flown  to 
be  a  reed-bird  or  rice-bird  and  to  find 
mankind  his  enemies.  He  is  no  longer 
a  singer  but  a  gourmand  and  valued  only 
as  a  choice  morsel,  doubtless  delicious, 
yet  one  that  should  choke  a  New  Eng- 
lander. 

58 


XIV 

THE  GOLDEN-WINGED  WOODPECKER 

THE  migrant  woodpecker  whose  cheery 
cackle  assures  us  of  the  certainty  of 
spring  is  rich  in  names  that  well  befit 
him.  If  you  take  to  high-sounding 
titles  for  your  humble  friends,  you  will 
accept  Colaptes  aurattis,  as  he  flies  above 
you,  borrowing  more  gold  of  the  sun- 
beams that  shine  through  his  yellow 
pinions,  or  will  be  content  to  call  him 
simply  golden-winged.  When  he  flashes 
his  wings  in  straight-away  flight  before 
you,  or  sounds  his  sharp,  single  note  of 
alarm,  or  peers  down  from  the  door  of 
his  lofty  tower,  or  hangs  on  its  wooden 
wall,  or  clinging  to  a  fence  stake  displays 
his  mottled  back,  yo'u  recognize  the  fit- 
ness of  each  name  the  country  folk  have 
given  him — flicker,  yellow-hammer,  yar- 
rup,  highhole  or  highholder,  and  what 
Thoreau  often  termed  him,  partridge- 
woodpecker.  It  is  a  wonder  that  the 
59 


THE  GOLDEN-WINGED   WOODPECKER 

joyous  cackle  wherewith  he  announces 
his  return  from  his  winter  sojourn  in  the 
South  has  not  gained  him  another,  and 
that  love  note,  so  like  the  slow  whetting 
of  a  knife  upon  a  steel,  still  another. 
Perhaps  it  is  because  they  are  especially 
sounds  of  spring  and  seldom  if  ever 
heard  after  the  season  of  joyful  arrival 
and  love-making. 

During  the  same  season  you  frequently 
hear  him  attuning  his  harsh  sharp  voice 
to  its  softest  note  of  endearment,  a  long- 
drawn  and  modulated  variation  of  his 
cackle.  When  household  cares  begin, 
the  lord  and  lady  of  the  wooden  tower, 
like  too  many  greater  and  wiser  two- 
legged  folk,  give  over  singing  and  soft 
words.  At  home  and  abroad  their  de- 
portment is  sober  and  business-like,  and 
except  for  an  occasional  alarm-cry  they 
are  mostly  silent. 

As  you  wander  through  the  orchard 
of  an  early  midsummer  day  and  pause 
beside  an  old  apple-tree  to  listen  to  the 
cuckoo's  flute  or  admire  the  airy  fabric 
of  the  wood  pewee's  nest,  a  larger  scale 
of  lichen  on  the  lichened  boughs,  you 
hear  a  smothered  vibrant  murmur  close 
60 


THE   GOLDEN-WINGED    WOODPECKER 

beside  you,  as  if  the  heart  of  the  old  tree 
was  pulsating  with  audible  life.  It  is 
startlingly  suggestive  of  disturbed  yel- 
low-jackets, but  when  you  move  around 
the  trunk  in  cautious  reconnoissance,  you 
discover  the  round  portal  of  a  flicker's 
home,  and  the  sound  resolves  itself  into 
harmlessness.  It  is  only  the  callow 
young  clamoring  for  food,  or  complain- 
ing of  their  circumscribed  quarters. 

Not  many  days  hence  they  will  be  out 
in  the  wide  world  of  air  and  sunshine  of 
which  they  now  know  as  little  as  when 
they  chipped  the  shell.  Lusty  fellows 
they  will  be  then,  with  much  of  their 
parents'  beauty  already  displayed  in  their 
bright  new  plumage  and  capable  of  an 
outcry  that  will  hold  a  bird-eating  cat 
at  bay.  A  little  later  they  will  be,  as 
their  parents  are,  helpful  allies  against 
the  borers,  the  insidious  enemies  of  our 
apple-tree.  It  is  a  warfare  which  the 
groundling  habits  of"  the  golden  -  wings 
make  them  more  ready  to  engage  in  than 
any  other  of  the  woodpecker  clans. 

In  sultry  August  weather,  when  the 
shrill  cry  of  the  cicada  pierces  the  hot 
air  like  a  hotter  needle  of  sound,  and  the 
61 


THE   GOLDEN-WINGED   WOODPECKER 

dry  husky  beat  of  his  wings  emphasizes 
the  apparent  fact  of  drouth  as  you  walk 
on  the  desiccated  slippery  herbage  of 
meadow  and  pasture,  the  golden-wings 
with  all  their  grown-up  family  fly  up  be- 
fore you  from  their  feast  on  the  ant  hills 
and  go  flashing  and  flickering  away  like 
rockets  shot  aslant,  into  the  green  tent 
of  the  wild  cherry  trees  to  their  dessert 
of  juicy  black  fruit. 

Early  in  the  dreariness  of  November, 
they  have  vanished  with  all  the  horde 
of  summer  residents  who  have  made 
the  season  of  leaf,  flower,  and  fruit  the 
brighter  by  their  presence.  The  deso- 
late leafless  months  go  by,  till  at  last 
comes  the  promise  of  spring,  and  you  are 
aware  of  a  half  unconscious  listening  for 
the  golden-wings.  Presently  the  loud, 
long,  joyous  iteration  breaks  upon  your 
ear,  and  you  hail  the  fulfillment  of  the 
promise  and  the  blithe  new  comer,  a 
golden  link  in  the  lengthening  chain 
that  is  encircling  the  earth. 
62 


XV 

JUNE    DAYS 

JUNE  brings  skies  of  purest  blue, 
flecked  with  drifts  of  silver,  fields  and 
woods  in  the  flush  of  fresh  verdure,  with 
the  streams  winding  among  them  in 
crystal  loops  that  invite  the  angler  with 
promise  of  more  than  fish,  something 
that  tackle  cannot  lure  nor  creel  hold. 

The  air  is  full  of  the  perfume  of  locust 
and  grape  bloom,  the  spicy  odor  of  pine 
and  fir,  and  of  pleasant  voices  —  the 
subdued  murmur  of  the  brook's  chang- 
ing babble,  the  hum  of  bees,  the  stir  of 
the  breeze,  the  songs  of  birds.  Out  of 
the  shady  aisles  of  the  woods  come  the 
flute  note  of  the  hermit  thrush,  the  sil- 
very chime  of  the  tawny  thrush  ;  and 
from  the  forest  border,  where  the  lithe 
birches  swing  their  shadows  to  and  fro 
along  the  bounds  of  wood  and  field, 
comes  that  voice  of  June,  the  cuckoo's 
gurgling  note  of  preparation,  and  then 
63 


JUNE   DAYS 


the  soft,  monotonous  call  that  centuries 
ago  gave  him  a  name. 

General  Kukushna  the  exiles  in  Si- 
beria entitle  him  ;  and  when  they  hear 
his  voice,  every  one  who  can  break 
bounds  is  irresistibly  drawn  to  follow 
him,  and  live  for  a  brief  season  a  free 
life  in  the  greenwood.  As  to  many 
weary  souls  and  hampered  bodies  there, 
so  to  many  such  here  comes  the  voice  of 
the  little  commander,  now  persuasive, 
now  imperative,  not  to  men  and  women 
in  exile  or  wearing  the  convict's  garb, 
but  suffering  some  sort  of  servitude  laid 
upon  them  or  self-imposed.  Toiling  for 
bread,  for  wealth,  for  fame,  they  are 
alike  in  bondage  —  chained  to  the  shop, 
the  farm,  the  desk,  the  office. 

Some  who  hear,  obey,  and  revel  in 
the  brief  but  delightful  freedom  of  June 
days  spent  in  the  perfumed  breath  of 
full-leafed  woods,  by  cold  water-brooks 
and  rippled  lakes.  Others  listen  with 
hungry  hearts  to  the  summons,  but  can- 
not loose  their  fetters,  and  can  only  an- 
swer with  a  sigh,  "  It  is  not  for  me,"  or 
"  Not  yet,"  and  toil  on,  still  hoping  for 
future  days  of  freedom. 
64 


JUNE   DAYS 


But  saddest  of  all  is  the  case  of  such 
as  hear  not,  or,  hearing,  heed  not  the 
voice  of  the  Kukushna,  the  voices  of  the 
birds,  the  murmurous  droning  of  bees 
amid  the  blossoms,  the  sweet  prattle 
of  running  waters  and  dancing  waves. 
Though  these  come  to  them  from  all 
about,  and  all  about  them  are  unfolded 
the  manifold  beauties  of  this  joyous 
month,  no  sign  is  made  to  them.  Their 
dull  ears  hear  not  the  voices  of  nature, 
neither  do  their  dim  eyes  see  the  won- 
drous miracle  of  spring  which  has  been 
wrought  all  about  them.  Like  the  man 
with  the  muck-rake,  they  toil  on,  intent 
only  upon  the  filth  and  litter  at  their 
feet.  Sad  indeed  must  it  be  to  have 
a  soul  so  poor  that  it  responds  to  no 
caress  of  nature,  sadder  than  any  impo- 
sition of  servitude  or  exile  which  yet 
hinders  not  one's  soul  from  arising  with 
intense  longing  for  the  wild  world  of 
woods  and  waters  when  Kukushna  sounds 
his  soft  trumpet  call. 
65 


XVI 

THE    BULLFROG 

THE  flooded  expanse  of  the  marshes 
has  shrunken  perceptibly  along  its  shore- 
ward boundaries,  leaving  a  mat  of  dead 
weeds,  bits  of  driftwood,  and  a  water- 
worn  selvage  of  bare  earth  to  mark  its 
widest  limits.  The  green  tips  of  the 
rushes  are  thrust  above  the  amber  shal- 
lows, whereon  flotillas  of  water-shield  lie 
anchored  in  the  sun,  while  steel-blue 
devil's-needles  sew  the  warm  air  with 
intangible  threads  of  zigzag  flight. 

The  meshed  shadows  of  the  water- 
maples  are  full  of  the  reflections  of  the 
green  and  silver  of  young  leaves.  The 
naked  tangle  of  button-bushes  has  be- 
come a  green  island,  populous  with  gar- 
rulous colonies  of  redwings.  The  great 
flocks  of  wild  ducks  that  came  to  the 
reopened  waters  have  had  their  holiday 
rest,  and  journeyed  onward  to  summer 
homes  and  cares  in  the  further  north. 
66 


THE   BULLFROG 


The  few  that  remain  are  in  scattered 
pairs  and  already  in  the  silence  and  se- 
clusion of  nesting.  You  rarely  see  the 
voyaging  muskrat  or  hear  his  plaintive 
love  calls. 

Your  ear  has  long  been  accustomed 
to  the  watery  clangor  of  the  bittern, 
when  a  new  yet  familiar  sound  strikes 
it,  the  thin,  vibrant  bass  of  the  first  bull- 
frog's note.  It  may  be  lacking  in  musi- 
cal quality,  but  it  is  attuned  to  its  sur- 
roundings, and  you  are  glad  that  the 
green-coated  player  has  at  last  recovered 
his  long-submerged  banjo,  and  is  twang- 
ing its  water-soaked  strings  in  prelude 
to  the  summer  concert.  He  is  a  little 
out  of  practice,  and  his  instrument  is 
slightly  out  of  tune,  but  a  few  days'  use 
will  restore  both  touch  and  resonance, 
when  he  and  his  hundred  brethren  shall 
awaken  the  marsh-haunting  echoes  and 
the  sleeping  birds  with  a  grand  twilight 
recital.  It  will  reach  your  ears  a  mile 
away,  and  draw  you  back  to  the  happy 
days  of  boyhood,  when  you  listened  for 
the  bullfrogs  to  tell  that  fish  would  bite, 
and  it  was  time  for  boys  to  go  a-fishing. 

In  the  first  days  of  his  return  to  the 
67 


THE  BULLFROG 


upper  world  of  water,  this  old  acquaint- 
ance may  be  shy,  and  neither  permit  nor 
offer  any  familiarity.  The  fixed  placidity 
of  his  countenance  is  not  disturbed  by 
your  approach,  but  if  you  overstep  by 
one  pace  what  he  considers  the  proper 
limit,  down  goes  his  head  under  cover  of 
the  flood.  Marking  his  jerky  course  with 
an  underwake  and  a  shiver  of  the  rushes, 
he  reappears,  to  calmly  observe  you  from 
a  safer  distance. 

Custom  outwears  his  diffidence,  and 
the  fervid  sun  warms  him  to  more  genial 
moods,  when  he  will  suffer  you  to  come 
quietly  quite  close  to  him  and  tickle 
his  sides  with  a  bullrush,  till  in  an  ec- 
stasy of  pleasure  he  loses  all  caution,  and 
bears  with  supreme  contentment  the 
titillation  of  your  finger  tips.  His  flabby 
sides  swell  with  fullness  of  enjoyment, 
his  blinking  eyes  grow  dreamy  and  the 
corners  of  his  blandly  expressionless 
mouth  almost  curve  upward  with  an 
elusive  smile.  Not  till  your  fingers 
gently  close  upon  him  does  he  become 
aware  of  the  indiscretion  into  which  he 
has  lapsed,  and  with  a  frantic  struggle 
he  tears  himself  away  from  your  grasp 
68 


THE   BULLFROG 


and  goes  plunging  headlong  into  his 
nether  element,  bellowing  out  his  shame 
and  astonishment. 

Another  day  as  you  troll  along  the 
channel  an  oar's  length  from  the  weedy 
borders,  you  see  him  afloat  on  his  lily- 
pad  raft,  heeding  you  no  more  than 
does  the  golden-hearted  blossom  whose 
orange  odor  drifts  about  him,  nor  is  he 
disturbed  by  splash  of  oar  nor  dip  of 
paddle,  nor  even  when  his  bark  and  her 
perfume-freighted  consort  are  tossed  on 
your  undulating  wake. 

As  summer  wanes  you  see  and  hear 
him  less  frequently,  but  he  is  still  your 
comrade  of  the  marshes,  occasionally  an- 
nouncing his  presence  with  a  resonant 
twang  and  a  jerky  splash  among  the 
sedges. 

The  pickerel  weeds  have  struck  their 
blue  banners  to  the  conquering  frost, 
and  the  marshes  are  sere,  and  silent,  and 
desolate.  When  they  are  warmed  again 
with  the  new  life  of  spring,  we  shall  lis- 
ten for  the  jubilant  chorus  of  our  old 
acquaintance,  the  bullfrog. 
69 


XVII 

THE    ANGLER 


ANGLING  is  set  down  by  the  master 
of  the  craft,  whom  all  revere  but  none 
now  follow,  as  the  Contemplative  Man's 
Recreation ;  but  is  the  angler,  while 
angling,  a  contemplative  man  ? 

That  beloved  and  worthy  brother 
whose  worm -baited  hook  dangles  in 
quiet  waters,  placid  as  his  mind  —  till 
some  wayfaring  perch,  or  bream,  or  bull- 
head shall  by  chance  come  upon  it,  he, 
meanwhile,  with  rod  set  in  the  bank, 
taking  his  ease  upon  the  fresh  June 
sward,  not  touching  his  tackle  nor  re- 
garding it  but  with  the  corner  of  an  eye 
—  he  may  contemplate  and  dream  day 
dreams.  He  may  watch  the  clouds 
drifting  across  the  blue,  the  green 
branches  waving  between  him  and 
them,  consider  the  lilies  of  the  field, 
70 


THE  ANGLER 


note  the  songs  of  the  catbird  in  the 
willow  thicket,  watch  the  poise  and 
plunge  of  the  kingfisher,  and  so  spend 
all  the  day  with  nature  and  his  own  lazy 
thoughts.  That  is  what  he  came  for. 
Angling  with  him  is  only  a  pretense,  an 
excuse  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  great  mother 
whom  he  so  dearly  loves ;  and  if  he  car- 
ries home  not  so  much  as  a  scale,  he  is 
happy  and  content. 

But  how  is  it  with  him  who  comes 
stealing  along  with  such  light  tread  that 
it  scarcely  crushes  the  violets  or  shakes 
the  dewdrops  from  the  ferns,  and  casts 
his  flies  with  such  precise  skill  upon  the 
very  handsbreadth  of  water  that  gives 
most  promise  to  his  experienced  eye ;  or 
drops  his  minnow  with  such  care  into 
the  eddying  pool,  where  he  feels  a  bass 
must  lie  awaiting  it.  Eye  and  ear  and 
every  organ  of  sense  are  intent  upon 
the  sport  for  which  he. came.  He  sees 
only  the  images  of  the  clouds,  no  branch 
but  that  which  impedes  him  or  offers 
cover  to  his  stealthy  approach.  His  ear 
is  more  alert  for  the  splash  of  fishes  than 
for  bird  songs.  With  his  senses  go  all 
7' 


THE   ANGLER 


his  thoughts,  and  float  not  away  in  day 
dreams. 

Howsoever  much  he  loves  her,  for 
the  time  while  he  hath  rod  in  hand 
Mother  Nature  is  a  fish  -  woman,  and 
he  prays  that  she  may  deal  generously 
with  him.  Though  he  be  a  parson,  his 
thoughts  tend  not  to  religion  ;  though  a 
savant,  not  to  science ;  though  a  states- 
man, not  to  politics ;  though  an  artist, 
to  no  art  save  the  art  of  angling.  So 
far  removed  from  all  these  while  he  casts 
his  fly  or  guides  his  minnow,  how  much 
further  is  his  soul  from  all  but  the  mat- 
ter in  hand  when  a  fish  has  taken  the 
one  or  the  other,  and  all  his  skill  is  taxed 
to  the  utmost  to  bring  his  victim  to 
creel.  Heresy  and  paganism  may  pre- 
vail, the  light  of  science  be  quenched, 
the  country  go  to  the  dogs,  pictures  go 
unpainted,  and  statues  unmoulded  till  he 
has  saved  this  fish. 

When  the  day  is  spent,  the  day's 
sport  done,  and  he  wends  his  way  home- 
ward with  a  goodly  score,  satisfied  with 
himself  and  all  the  world  besides,  he 
may  ponder  on  many  things  apart  from 
that  which  has  this  day  taken  him  by 
72 


THE   ANGLER 


green  fields  and  pleasant  waters.  Now 
he  may  brood  his  thoughts,  and  dream 
dreams ;  but  while  he  angles,  the  com- 
plete angler  is  not  a  contemplative  man. 

ii 

The  rivers  roaring  between  their 
brimming  banks  ;  the  brooks  babbling 
over  their  pebbled  beds  and  cross-stream 
logs  that  will  be  bridges  for  the  fox  in 
midsummer ;  the  freed  waters  of  lakes 
and  ponds,  dashing  in  slow  beat  of  waves 
or  quicker  pulse  of  ripples  against  their 
shores,  in  voices  monotonous  but  never 
tiresome,  now  call  all  who  delight  in  the 
craft  to  go  a-fishing. 

With  the  sap  in  the  aged  tree,  the 
blood  quickens  in  the  oldest  angler's 
veins,  whether  he  be  of  the  anointed 
who  fish  by  the  book,  or  of  the  common 
sort  who  practice  the  methods  of  the  for- 
gotten inventors  of  the  "art. 

The  first  are  busy  with  rods  and  reels 
that  are  a  pleasure  to  the  eye  and  touch, 
with  fly-books  whose  leaves  are  as  bright 
with  color  as  painted  pictures,  the  others 
rummaging  corner-cupboards  for  mislaid 
lines,  searching  the  sheds  for  favorite 
73 


THE   ANGLER 


poles  of  ash,  ironwood,  tamarack,  or  ce- 
dar, or  perhaps  the  woods  for  one  just 
budding  on  its  sapling  stump. 

Each  enjoys  as  much  as  the  other  the 
pleasant  labor  of  preparation  and  the  an- 
ticipation of  sport,  though  perhaps  that 
of  the  scientific  angler  is  more  aesthetic 
enjoyment,  as  his  outfitting  is  the  dain- 
tier and  more  artistic.  But  to  each 
comes  the  recollection  of  past  happy  days 
spent  on  lake,  river  and  brook,  memories 
touched  with  a  sense  of  loss,  of  days  that 
can  never  come  again,  of  comrades  gone 
forever  from  earthly  companionship. 

And  who  shall  say  that  the  plebeian 
angler  does  not  enter  upon. the  untan- 
gling of  his  cotton  lines,  the  trimming 
of  his  new  cut  pole,  and  the  digging  of 
his  worms,  with  as  much  zest  as  his  bro- 
ther of  the  finer  cast  on  the  testing  and 
mending  of  lancewood  or  split  bamboo 
rod,  the  overhauling  of  silken  lines  and 
leaders,  and  the  assorting  of  flies. 

in 

Considering  the  younger  generation 
of  anglers,  one  finds  more  enthusiasm 
among  those  who  talk  learnedly  of  all 

74 


THE   ANGLER 


the  niceties  of  the  art.  They  scorn  all 
fish  not  acknowledged  as  game.  They 
plan  more,  though  they  may  accomplish 
less  than  the  common  sort  to  whom  all 
of  fishing  tackle  is  a  pole,  a  line,  and  a 
hook.  To  them  fishing  is  but  fishing, 
and  fish  are  only  fish,  and  they  will  go 
for  one  or  the  other  when  the  signs  are 
right  and  the  day  propitious. 

Descending  to  the  least  and  latest 
generation  of  anglers,  we  see  the  condi- 
tions reversed.  The  youth  born  to  rod 
and  reel  and  fly  is  not  so  enthusiastic  in 
his  devotion  to  the  sport  as  the  boy 
whose  birthright  is  only  the  pole  that 
craftsman  never  fashioned,  the  kinky 
lines  of  the  country  store,  and  hooks 
known  by  no  maker's  name.  For  it  is 
not  in  the  nature  of  a  boy  to  hold  to  any 
nicety  in  sport  of  any  sort,  and  this  one, 
being  herein  unrestrained,  enters  upon 
the  art  called  gentle  with  all  the  wild 
freedom  of  a  young  savage  or  a  half- 
grown  mink. 

For  him  it  is  almost  as  good  as  going 

fishing,  to  unearth  and  gather  in  an  old 

teapot  the  worms,  every  one  of  which  is 

to  his  sanguine  vision  the  promise  of  a 

75 


THE   ANGLER 


fish.  What  completeness  of  happiness 
for  him  to  be  allowed  to  go  fishing  with 
his  father  or  grandfather  or  the  acknow- 
ledged great  fisherman  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, a  good-for-nothing  ne'er-do-well, 
but  wise  in  all  the  ways  of  fish  and  their 
taking  and  very  careful  of  and  kind  to 
little  boys. 

The  high-hole  never  cackled  so  mer- 
rily, nor  meadow  lark  sang  sweeter,  nor 
grass  sprang  greener  nor  water  shone 
brighter  than  to  the  boy  when  he  goes 
a-fishing  thus  accompanied.  To  him  is 
welcome  everything  that  comes  from  the 
waters,  be  it  trout,  bass,  perch,  bullhead, 
or  sunfish,  and  he  hath  pride  even  in  the 
abominable  but  toothsome  eel  and  the 
uneatable  bowfin. 

Well,  remembering  that  we  were  once 
boys  and  are  yet  anglers,  though  we  sel- 
dom go  a-fishing,  we  wish,  in  the  days 
of  the  new  springtide,  to  all  the  craft, 
whether  they  be  of  high  or  low  degree, 
bent  and  cramped  with  the  winter  of 
age  or  flushed  with  the  spring  of  life, 
pleasant  and  peaceful  days  of  honest 
sport  by  all  watersides,  and  full  creels 
and  strings  and  wythes. 
76 


THE   ANGLER 


In  the  soft  evenings  of  April  when  the 
air  is  full  of  the  undefinable  odor  of  the 
warming  earth  and  of  the  incessant  re- 
joicing of  innumerable  members  of  the 
many  families  of  batrachians,  one  may 
see  silently  moving  lights  prowling  along 
the  low  shores  of  shallow  waters,  now 
hidden  by  trunks  of  great  trees  that  are 
knee-deep  in  the  still  water,  now  emerg- 
ing, illuminating  bolls  and  branches  and 
flashing  their  glimmering  glades  far 
across  the  ripples  of  wake  and  light 
breeze. 

If  one  were  near  enough  he  could  see 
the  boat  of  the  spearers,  its  bow  and  the 
intent  figure  of  the  spearman  aglow  in 
the  light  of  the  jack  which  flares  a  back- 
ward flame  with  its  steady  progress,  and 
drops  a  slow  shower  of  sparks,  while  the 
stern  and  the  paddler  sitting  therein  are 
dimly  apparent  in  the  verge  of  the  gloom. 

These  may  be  honest  men  engaged  in 
no  illegal  affair ;  they  exercise  skill  of 
a  certain  sort  ;  they  are  enthusiastic  in 
the  pursuit  of  their  pastime,  which  is  as 
fair  as  jacking  deer,  a  practice  upheld  by 
77 


THE   ANGLER 


many  in  high  places ;  yet  these  who  by 
somewhat  similar  methods  take  fish  for 
sport  and  food  are  not  accounted  honest 
fishermen,  but  arrant  poachers.  If  jack- 
ing deer  is  right,  how  can  jacking  fish 
be  wrong  ?  or  if  jacking  fish  be  wrong, 
how  can  jacking  deer  be  right  ?  Verily, 
there  are  nice  distinctions  in  the  ethics 
of  sport. 

78 


XVIII 

FARMERS   AND   FIELD   SPORTS 

"  Happy  the  man  whose  only  care 

A  few  paternal  acres  bound, 
Content  to  breathe  his  native  air 
On  his  own  ground." 

HAPPIER  still  is  such  a  one  who  has  a 
love  for  the  rod  and  gun,  and  with  them 
finds  now  and  then  a  day's  freedom  from 
all  cares  by  the  side  of  the  stream  that 
borders  his  own  acres  and  in  the  woods 
that  crest  his  knolls  or  shade  his  swamp. 

As  a  rule  none  of  our  people  take  so 
few  days  of  recreation  as  the  farmer. 
Excepting  Sundays,  two  or  three  days  at 
the  county  fair,  and  perhaps  as  many 
more  spent  in  the  crowd  and  discomfort 
of  a  cheap  railroad  excursion,  are  all  that 
are  given  by  the  ordinary  farmer  to  any- 
thing but  the  affairs  of  the  farm.  It  is 
true  that  his  outdoor  life  makes  it  less 
necessary  for  him  than  for  the  man 
whose  office  or  shop  work  keeps  him 
79 


FARMERS   AND   FIELD   SPORTS 

mostly  indoors,  to  devote  a  month  or  a 
fortnight  of  each  year  to  entire  rest  from 
labor.  Indeed,  he  can  hardly  do  this 
except  in  winter,  when  his  own  fireside 
is  oftener  the  pleasantest  place  for  rest. 
But  he  would  be  the  better  for  more 
days  ot  healthful  pleasure,  and  many 
such  he  might  have  if  he  would  so  use 
those  odd  ones  which  fall  within  his 
year,  when  crops  are  sown  and  planted 
or  harvested.  A  day  in  the  woods  or  by 
the  stream  is  better  for  body  and  mind 
than  one  spent  in  idle  gossip  at  the  vil- 
lage store,  and  nine  times  out  of  ten 
better  for  the  pocket,  though  one  come 
home  without  fin  or  feather  to  show  for 
his  day's  outing.  One  who  keeps  his 
eyes  and  ears  on  duty  while  abroad  in 
the  field  can  hardly  fail  to  see  and  hear 
something  new,  or,  at  least,  more  inter- 
esting and  profitable  than  ordinary  gos- 
sip, and  the  wear  and  tear  of  tackle  and 
a  few  charges  of  ammunition  wasted  will 
cost  less  than  the  treats  which  are  pretty 
apt  to  be  part  of  a  day's  loafing. 

Barring  the  dearth  of   the  objects  of 
his  pursuit,  the  farmer  who  goes  a-fishing 
and  a-hunting  should  not  be  unsuccess- 
80 


FARMERS   AND   FIELD   SPORTS 

ful  if  he  has  fair  skill  with  the  rod  and 
gun.  For  he  who  knows  most  of  the 
habits  of  fish  and  game  will  succeed  best 
in  their  capture,  and  no  man,  except  the 
naturalist  and  the  professional  fisherman 
and  hunter,  has  a  better  chance  to  gain 
this  knowledge  than  the  farmer,  whose 
life  brings  him  into  everyday  companion- 
ship with  nature.  His  fields  and  woods 
are  the  homes  and  haunts  of  the  birds 
and  beasts  of  venery,  from  the  beginning 
of  the  year  to  its  end,  and  in  his  streams 
many  of  the  fishes  pass  their  lives.  By 
his  woodside  the  quail  builds  her  nest, 
and  when  the  foam  of  blossom  has  dried 
away  on  the  buckwheat  field  she  leads 
her  young  there  to  feed  on  the  brown 
kernel  stranded  on  the  coral  stems.  If 
he  chance  to  follow  his  wood  road  in 
early  June,  the  ruffed  grouse  limps  and 
flutters  along  it  before  him,  while  her 
callow  chicks  vanish  as  if  by  a  conjurer's 
trick  from  beneath  his  very  footfall.  A 
month  later,  grown  to  the  size  of  robins, 
they  will  scatter  on  the  wing  from  his 
path  with  a  vigor  that  foretells  the  bold 
whir  and  the  swiftness  of  their  flight  in 
their  grown-up  days,  when  they  will  stir 
8r 


FARMERS   AND   FIELD   SPORTS 

the  steadiest  nerve,  whether  they  hurtle 
from  an  October-painted  thicket  or  from 
the  blue  shadows  of  untracked  snow. 
No  one  is  likelier  to  see  and  hear  the 
strange  wooing  of  the  woodcock  in  the 
soft  spring  evenings,  and  to  the  farmer's 
ear  first  comes  that  assurance  of  spring, 
the  wail  of  the  Bartram's  sandpiper  re- 
turning from  the  South  to  breed  in 
meadow  and  pasture,  and  then  in  hollow 
trees  that  overhang  the  river  the  wood 
ducks  begin  to  spoil  their  holiday  attire 
in  the  work  and  care  of  housekeeping. 
The  fox  burrows  and  breeds  in  the 
farmer's  woods.  The  raccoon's  den  is 
there  in  ledge  or  hollow  tree.  The  hare 
makes  her  form  in  the  shadow  of  his 
evergreens,  where  she  dons  her  dress  of 
tawny  or  white  to  match  the  brown  floor 
of  the  woods  or  its  soft  covering  of  snow. 
The  bass  comes  to  his  river  in  May  to 
spawn,  the  pike-perch  for  food,  and  the 
perch  lives  there,  as  perhaps  the  trout 
does  in  his  brook. 

All  these  are  his  tenants,  or  his  sum- 
mer boarders,  and  if  he  knows  not  some- 
thing of  their  lives,  and  when  and  where 
to  find  them  at  home  or  in  their  favorite 
82 


FARMERS   AND   FIELD   SPORTS 

resorts,  he  is  a  careless  landlord.  His 
life  will  be  the  pleasanter  for  the  inter- 
est he  takes  in  theirs,  and  the  skill  he 
acquires  in  bringing  them  to  bag  and 
creel. 

83 


XIX 

TO   A    TRESPASS    SIGN 

Scene,  A  Wood.  An  old  man  with  a  fishing-rod 
speaks :  — 

WHAT  strange  object  is  this  which  I 
behold,  incongruous  in  its  staring  white- 
ness of  fresh  paint  and  black  lettering, 
its  straightness  of  lines  and  abrupt  irreg- 
ularity amid  the  soft  tints  and  graceful 
curves  of  this  sylvan  scene  ?  As  I  live, 
a  trespass  sign ! 

Thou  inanimate  yet  most  impertinent 
thing,  dumb  yet  commanding  me  with 
most  imperative  words  to  depart  hence, 
how  dost  thou  dare  forbid  my  entrance 
upon  what  has  so  long  been  my  own, 
even  as  it  is  the  birds'  and  beasts'  and 
fishes',  not  by  lease  or  title  deed,  but 
of  natural  right  ?  Hither  from  time  im- 
memorial have  they  come  at  will  and  so 
departed  at  no  man's  behest,  as  have  I 
since  the  happy  days  when  a  barefoot 
boy  I  cast  my  worm-baited  hook  among 
84 


TO   A   TRESPASS   SIGN 


the  crystal  foam  bells,  or  bearing  the 
heavy  burden  of  my  grandsire's  rusty 
flint-lock,  I  stalked  the  wily  grouse  in 
the  diurnal  twilight  of  these  thickets. 

Here  was  I  thrilled  by  the  capture  of 
my  first  trout ;  here  exulted  over  the 
downfall  of  my  first  woodcock ;  here, 
grown  to  man's  estate,  I  learned  to  cast 
the  fly  ;  here  beheld  my  first  dog  draw 
on  his  game,  and  here,  year  after  year, 
till  my  locks  have  grown  gray,  have  I 
come,  sharp  set  with  months  of  longing, 
to  live  again  for  a  little  while  the  care- 
free days  of  youth. 

Never  have  I  been  bidden  to  depart 
but  by  storm  or  nightfall  or  satiety,  until 
now  thou  confrontest  me  with  thy  impu- 
dent mandate,  thou,  thou  contemptible, 
but  yet  not  to  be  despised  nor  unheeded 
parallelogram  of  painted  deal,  with  thy 
legal  phrases  and  impending  penalties  ; 
thou,  the  silent  yet  terribly  impressive 
representative  of  men  whose  purses  are 
longer  than  mine ! 

What  is  their  right  to  this  stream,  these 

woods,    compared  with   mine  ?      Theirs 

is  only  gained  by  purchase,  confirmed  by 

scrawled  parchment,  signed  and  sealed ; 

85 


TO  A   TRESPASS   SIGN 


mine  a  birthright,  as  always  I  hoped  it 
might  be  of  my  sons  and  my  sons'  sons. 
What  to  the  usurpers  of  our  rights  are 
these  woods  and  waters  but  a  place  for 
the  killing  of  game  and  fish  ?  They  do 
not  love,  as  a  man  the  roof-tree  where- 
under  he  was  born,  these  arches  and  low 
aisles  of  the  woods  ;  they  do  not  know  as 
I  do  every  silver  loop  of  the  brook,  every 
tree  whose  quivering  reflection  throbs 
across  its  eddies  ;  its  voice  is  only  babble 
to  their  ears,  the  song  of  the  pines  tells 
them  no  story  of  bygone  years. 

Of  all  comers  here,  I  who  expected 
most  kindly  welcome  am  most  inhospit- 
ably treated.  All  my  old  familiars,  the 
birds,  the  beasts,  and  the  fishes,  may  fly 
over  thee,  walk  beneath  thee,  swim 
around  thee,  but  to  me  thou  art  a  wall 
that  I  may  not  pass. 

I  despise  thee  and  spit  upon  thee,  thou 
most  impudent  intruder,  thou  insolent 
sentinel,  thou  odious  monument  of  self- 
ishness, but  I  dare  not  lay  hands  upon 
thee  and  cast  thee  down  and  trample 
thee  in  the  dust  of  the  earth  as  thou 
shouldst  of  right  be  entreated.  To  rid 
myself  of  thy  hateful  sight,  I  can  only 
86 


TO  A   TRESPASS   SIGN 


turn  my  back  upon  thee  and  depart  with 
sorrow  and  anger  in  my  heart. 

Mayst  thou  keep  nothing  but  disap- 
pointment for  the  greedy  wretches  who 
set  thee  here. 

87 


XX 

A    GENTLE   SPORTSMAN 

ALL  the  skill  of  woodcraft  that  goes 
to  the  making  of  the  successful  hunter 
with  the  gun,  must  be  possessed  by  him 
who  hunts  his  game  with  the  camera. 
His  must  be  the  stealthy,  panther-like 
tread  that  breaks  no  twig  nor  rustles  the 
fallen  leaves.  His  the  eye  that  reads 
at  a  glance  the  signs  that  to  the  ordi- 
nary sight  are  a  blank  or  at  most  are  an 
untranslatable  enigma.  His  a  patience 
that  counts  time  as  nothing  when  meas- 
ured with  the  object  sought.  When  by 
the  use  and  practice  of  these,  he  has 
drawn  within  a  closer  range  of  his  timid 
game  than  hi.s  brother  of  the  gun  need 
attain,  he  pulls  trigger  of  a  weapon  that 
destroys  not,  but  preserves  its  unharmed 
quarry  in  the  very  counterfeit  of  life  and 
motion.  The  wild  world  is  not  made 
the  poorer  by  one  life  for  his  shot,  nor 
88 


A   GENTLE   SPORTSMAN 


nature's  peace  disturbed,  nor  her  nicely 
adjusted  balance  jarred. 

He  bears  home  his  game,  wearing 
still  its  pretty  ways  of  life  in  the  midst 
of  its  loved  surroundings,  the  swaying 
hemlock  bough  where  the  grouse  perched, 
the  bending  ferns  about  the  deer's  couch, 
the  dew-beaded  sedges  where  the  wood- 
cock skulks  in  the  shadows  of  the  alders, 
the  lichened  trunks  and  dim  vistas  of 
primeval  woods,  the  sheen  of  voiceless 
waterfalls,  the  flash  of  sunlit  waves  that 
never  break. 

His  trophies  the  moth  may  not  as- 
sail. His  game  touches  a  finer  sense 
than  the  palate  possesses,  satisfies  a  no- 
bler appetite  than  the  stomach's  craving, 
and  furnishes  forth  a  feast  that,  ever 
spread,  ever  invites,  and  never  palls  upon 
the  taste. 

Moreover,  this  gentlest  of  sportsmen 
is  hampered  by  no  restrictions  of  close 
time,  nor  confronted  by  penalties  of 
trespass.  All  seasons  are  open  for  his 
bloodless  forays,  all  woods  and  waters 
free  to  his  harmless  weapon. 

Neither  is  he  trammeled  by  any  nice 
distinctions  as  to  what  may  or  may  not 
89 


A   GENTLE   SPORTSMAN 


be  considered  game.  Everything  counts 
in  his  score.  The  eagle  on  his  craggy 
perch,  the  high-hole  on  his  hollow  tree, 
are  as  legitimate  game  for  him  as  the 
deer  and  grouse.  All  things  beautiful 
and  wild  and  picturesque  are  his,  yet  he 
kills  them  not,  but  makes  them  a  living 
and  enduring  joy,  to  himself  and  all  who 
behold  them. 

90 


XXI 

JULY   DAYS 

The  woods  are  dense  with  full-grown 
leafage.  Of  all  the  trees,  only  the  bass- 
wood  has  delayed  its  blossoming,  to 
crown  the  height  of  summer  and  fill  the 
sun-steeped  air  with  a  perfume  that  calls 
all  the  wild  bees  from  hollow  tree  and 
scant  woodside  gleaning  to  a  wealth  of 
honey  gathering,  and  all  the  hive-dwell- 
ers from  their  board-built  homes  to  a 
finer  and  sweeter  pillage  than  is  offered 
by  the  odorous  white  sea  of  buckwheat. 
Half  the  flowers  of  wood  and  fields  are 
out  of  bloom.  Herdsgrass,  clover  and 
daisy  are  falling  before  the  mower.  The 
early  grain  fields  have  already  caught 
the  color  of  the  sun,  and  the  tasseling 
corn  rustles  its  broad  leaves  above  the 
rich  loam  that  the  woodcock  delights  to 
bore. 

The  dwindling  streams  have  lost  their 
boisterous  clamor  of  springtide  and  wim- 
91 


JULY   DAYS 


pie  with  subdued  voices  over  beds  too 
shallow  to  hide  a  minnow  or  his  poised 
shadow  on  the  sunlit  shallows.  The 
sharp  eye  of  the  angler  probes  the  green 
depths  of  the  slowly  swirling  pools,  and 
discovers  the  secrets  of  the  big  fish  which 
congregate  therein, 

The  river  has  marked  the  stages  of 
its  decreasing  volume  with  many  lines 
along  its  steep  banks.  It  discloses  the 
muskrat's  doorway,  to  which  he  once 
dived  so  gracefully,  but  now  must  clum- 
sily climb  to.  Rafts  of  driftwood  bridge 
the  shallow  current  sunk  so  low  that 
the  lithe  willows  bend  in  vain  to  kiss 
its  warm  bosom.  This  only  the  swaying 
trails  of  water-weeds  and  rustling  sedges 
toy  with  now ;  and  swift -winged  swal- 
lows coyly  touch.  There  is  not  depth  to 
hide  the  scurrying  schools  of  minnows, 
the  half  of  whom  fly  into  the  air  in  a 
curving  burst  of  silver  shower  before  the 
rush  of  a  pickerel,  whose  green  and  mot- 
tled sides  gleam  like  a  swift-shot  arrow 
in  the  downright  sunbeams. 

The  sandpiper  tilts  along  the  shelving 
shore.  Out  of  an  embowered  harbor  a 
wood  duck  convoys  her  fleet  of  duck- 
92 


JULY   DAYS 


lings,  and  on  the  ripples  of  their  wake 
the  anchored  argosies  of  the  water  lilies 
toss  and  cast  adrift  their  cargoes  of  per- 
fume. Above  them  the  green  heron 
perches  on  an  overhanging  branch,  un- 
couth but  alert,  whether  sentinel  or 
scout,  flapping  his  awkward  way  along 
the  ambient  bends  and  reaches.  With 
slow  wing-beats  he  signals  the  coming 
of  some  more  lazily  moving  boat,  that 
drifts  at  the  languid  will  of  the  current 
or  indolent  pull  of  oa*rs  that  grate  on 
the  golden-meshed  sand  and  pebbles. 

Lazily,  unexpectantly,  the  angler  casts 
his  line,  to  be  only  a  convenient  perch 
for  the  dragonflies;  for  the  fish,  save 
the  affrighted  minnows  and  the  hungry 
pickerel,  are  as  lazy  as  he.  To-day  he 
may  enjoy  to  the  full  the  contemplative 
man's  recreation,  nor  have  his  contem- 
plations disturbed  by  any  finny  folk  of 
the  under-water  world,  while  dreamily  he 
floats  in  sunshine  and  dappled  shadow, 
so  at  one  with  the  placid  waters  and 
quiet  shores  that  wood  duck,  sandpiper, 
and  heron  scarcely  note  his  unobtrusive 
presence. 

No  such  easy  and  meditative  pastime 
93 


JULY   DAYS 


attends  his  brother  of  the  gun  who, 
sweating  under  the  burden  of  lightest  ap- 
parel and  equipment,  beats  the  swampy 
covers  where  beneath  the  sprawling  al- 
ders and  arching  fronds  of  fern  the  wood- 
cock hides.  Not  a  breath  stirs  the  murky 
atmosphere  of  these  depths  of  shade, 
hotter  than  sunshine  ;  not  a  branch  nor 
leaf  moves  but  with  his  struggling  pas- 
sage, or  marking  with  a  wake  of  waving 
undergrowth  the  course  of  his  unseen 
dog. 

Except  this  rustling  of  branches, 
sedges  and  ferns,  the  thin,  continuous 
piping  of  the  swarming  mosquitoes,  the 
busy  tapping  and  occasional  harsh  call 
of  a  woodpecker,  scarcely  a  sound  in- 
vades the  hot  silence,  till  the  wake  of 
the  hidden  dog  ceases  suddenly  and  the 
waving  brakes  sway  with  quickening 
vibrations  into  stillness  behind  him. 
Then,  his  master  draws  cautiously  near, 
with  gun  at  a  ready  and  an  unheeded 
mosquito  drilling  his  nose,  the  fern  leaves 
burst  apart  with  a  sudden  shiver,  and 
a  woodcock,  uttering  that  shrill  unex- 
plained twitter,  upsprings  in  a  halo  of 
rapid  wing-beats  and  flashes  out  of  sight 
94 


JULY   DAYS 


among  leaves  and  branches.  As  quick, 
the  heelplate  strikes  the  alert  gunner's 
shoulder,  and,  as  if  in  response  to  the 
shock,  the  short  unechoed  report  jars 
the  silence  of  the  woods.  As  if  out  of 
the  cloud  of  sulphurous  smoke,  a  shower 
of  leaves  flutter  down,  with  a  quicker 
patter  of  dry  twigs  and  shards  of  bark, 
and  among  all  these  a  brown  clod  drops 
lifeless  and  inert  to  mother  earth. 

A  woodcock  is  a  woodcock,  though 
but  three-quarters  grown ;  and  the  shot 
one  that  only  a  quick  eye  and  ready 
hand  may  accomplish  ;  but  would  not 
the  achievement  have  been  more  worthy, 
the  prize  richer,  the  sport  keener  in  the 
gaudy  leafage  and  bracing  air  of  October, 
rather  than  in  this  sweltering  heat,  be- 
fogged with  clouds  of  pestering  insects, 
when  every  step  is  a  toil,  every  moment 
a  torture  ?  Yet  men  deem  it  sport  and 
glory  if  they  do  not  delight  in  its  per- 
formance. The  anxious  note  and  be- 
havior of  mother  song-birds,  whose  poor 
little  hearts  are  in  as  great  a  flutter  as 
their  wings  concerning  their  half-grown 
broods,  hatched  coincidently  with  the 
woodcock,  is  proof  enough  to  those  who 
95 


JULY  DAYS 


would  heed  it,  that  this  is  not  a  proper 
season  for  shooting.  But  in  some  north- 
erly parts  of  our  wide  country  it  is  wood- 
cock now  or  never,  for  the  birds  bred 
still  further  northward  are  rarely  tempted 
by  the  cosiest  copse  or  half-sunned  hill- 
side of  open  woods  to  linger  for  more 
than  a  day  or  two,  as  they  fare  south- 
ward, called  to  warmer  days  of  rest  and 
frostless  moonlit  nights  of  feeding  under 
kindlier  skies. 

While  the  nighthawk's  monotonous 
cry  and  intermittent  boom  and  the  indis- 
tinct voice  of  the  whippoorwill  ring  out 
in  the  late  twilight  of  the  July  evenings, 
the  alarmed,  half-guttural  chuckle  of  the 
grass  plover  is  heard,  so  early  migrating 
in  light  marching  order,  thin  in  flesh  but 
strong  of  wing,  a  poor  prize  for  the  gun- 
ner whose  ardor  outruns  his  humanity 
and  better  judgment.  Lean  or  fat,  a 
plover  is  a  plover,  but  would  that  he 
might  tarry  with  us  till  the  plump  grass- 
hoppers of  August  and  September  had 
clothed  his  breast  and  ribs  with  fatness. 

Well,  let  him  go,  if  so  soon  he  will. 
So  let  the  woodcock  go,  to  offer  his  best 
to  more  fortunate  sportsmen.  What 
96 


JULY   DAYS 


does  it  profit  us  to  kill  merely  for  the 
sake  of  killing,  and  have  to  show  there- 
for but  a  beggarly  account  of  bones  and 
feathers  ?  Are  there  not  grouse  and 
quail  and  woodcock  waiting  for  us,  and 
while  we  wait  for  them  can  we  not  con- 
tent ourselves  with  indolent  angling  by 
shaded  streams  in  these  melting  days 
of  July  rather  than  contribute  the  blaze 
and  smoke  of  gunpowder  to  the  heat  and 
murkiness  of  midsummer?  If  we  musfe 
shed  blood  let  us  tap  the  cool  veins  of 
the  fishes,  not  the  hot  arteries  of  brood- 
ing mother  birds  and  their  fledgelings. 
97 


XXII 

CAMPING    OUT 

"  CAMPING  out "  is  becoming  merely 
a  name  for  moving  out  of  one's  perma- 
nent habitation  and  dwelling  for  a  few 
.weeks  in  a  well-built  lodge,  smaller  than 
one's  home,  but  as  comfortable  and  al- 
most as  convenient ;  with  tables,  chairs 
and  crockery,  carpets  and  curtains,  beds 
with  sheets  and  blankets  on  real  bed- 
steads, a  stove  and  its  full  outfit  of  cook- 
ing utensils,  wherefrom  meals  are  served 
in  the  regular  ways  of  civilization.  Liv- 
ing in  nearly  the  same  fashion  of  his 
ordinary  life,  except  that  he  wears  a 
flannel  shirt  and  a  slouch  hat,  and  fishes 
a  little  and  loafs  more  than  is  his  ordi- 
nary custom,  our  "  camper "  imagines 
that  he  is  getting  quite  close  to  the  prim- 
itive ways  of  hunters  and  trappers  ;  that 
he  is  living  their  life  with  nothing  lacking 
but  the  rough  edges,  which  he  has  in- 
98 


CAMPING   OUT 


geniously  smoothed  away.  He  is  mis- 
taken. In  ridding  himself  of  some  of  its 
discomforts,  he  has  lost  a  great  deal  of 
the  best  of  real  camp  life ;  the  spice  of 
small  adventure,  and  the  woodsy  flavor 
that  its  half  -  hardships  and  makeshift 
appliances  give  it.  If  one  sleeps  a  little 
cold  under  his  one  blanket  on  his  bed 
of  evergreen  twigs,  though  he  does  not 
take  cold,  he  realizes  in  some  degree  the 
discomfort  of  Boone's  bivouac  when  he 
cuddled  beside  his  hounds  to  keep  from 
freezing  —  and  feels  slightly  heroic.  His 
slumbers  are  seasoned  with  dreams  of 
the  wild  woods,  as  the  balsamic  perfume 
of  his  couch  steals  into  his  nostrils  ;  his 
companions'  snores  invade  his  drowsy 
senses  as  the  growl  of  bears,  and  the 
thunderous  whir  of  grouse  bursting  out 
of  untrodden  thickets.  When  he  awakes 
in  the  gray  of  early  morning  he  finds 
that  the  few  hours  of  sleep  have  wrought 
a  miracle  of  rest,  and  he  feels  himself 
nearer  to  nature  when  he  washes  his 
face  in  the  brook,  than  when  he  rinses 
off  his  sleepiness  in  bowl  or  basin.  The 
water  of  the  spring  is  colder  and  has  a 
99 


CAMPING   OUT 


finer  flavor  when  he  drinks  it  from  a 
birch  bark  cup  of  his  own  making.  Tea 
made  in  a  frying-pan  has  an  aroma  never 
known  to  such  poor  mortals  as  brew 
their  tea  in  a  teapot,  and  no  mill  ever 
ground  such  coffee  as  that  which  is  tied 
up  in  a  rag  and  pounded  with  a  stone  or 
hatchet-head.  A  sharpened  stick  for  a 
fork  gives  a  zest  to  the  bit  of  pork  "  friz- 
zled "  on  as  rude  a  spit  and  plattered  on 
a  clean  chip  or  a  sheet  of  bark,  and  no 
fish  was  ever  more  toothsome  than  when 
broiled  on  a  gridiron  improvised  of  green 
wands  or  roasted  Indian  fashion  in  a 
cleft  stick. 

What  can  make  amends  for  the  loss  of 
the  camp-fire,  with  innumerable  pictures 
glowing  and  shifting  in  its  heart,  and 
conjuring  strange  shapes  out  of  the  sur- 
rounding gloom,  and  suggesting  unseen 
mysteries  that  the  circle  of  darkness 
holds  behind  its  rim  ?  How  are  the  wells 
of  conversation  to  be  thawed  out  by  a 
black  stove,  so  that  tales  of  hunters'  and 
fishers'  craft  and  adventure  shall  flow  till 
the  measure  of  man's  belief  is  overrun  ? 
How  is  the  congenial  spark  of  true  com- 
panionship to  be  kindled  when  people 


CAMPING   OUT 


brood  around  a  stove  and  light  their 
pipes  with  matches,  and  not  with  coals 
snatched  out  of  the  camp-fire's  edge,  or 
with  twigs  that  burn  briefly  with  baffling 
flame  ? 

But  it  will  not  be  long  before  it  will  be 
impossible  to  get  a  taste  of  real  camping 
without  taking  long  and  expensive  jour- 
neys, for  every  available  rod  of  lake  shore 
and  river  bank  is  being  taken  up  and 
made  populous  with  so-called  camps,  and 
the  comfortable  freedom  and  seclusion 
of  a  real  camp  are  made  impossible 
there.  One  desiring  that  might  better 
pitch  his  tent  in  the  back  woodlot  of  a 
farm  than  in  any  such  popular  resort. 
This  misnamed  camping  out  has  become 
a  fashion  which  seems  likely  to  last  till 
the  shores  are  as  thronged  as  the  towns, 
and  the  woods  are  spoiled  for  the  real 
campers,  whom  it  is  possible  to  ima- 
gine seeking  in  the  summers  of  the 
future  a  seclusion  in  the  cities  that  the 
forests  and  streams  no  longer  can  give 
them. 

Yet,  let  it  be  understood  that  make- 
believe  camping  is  better  than  no  camp- 
ing. It  cannot  but  bring  people  into 


CAMPING   OUT 


more  intimate  relations  with  nature  than 
they  would  be  if  they  stayed  at  home, 
and  so  to  better  acquaintance  with  our 
common  mother,  who  deals  so  impartially 
with  all  her  children. 


XXIII 

THE    CAMP-FIRE 

IF  "  the  open  fire  furnishes  the  room," 
the  camp-fire  does  more  for  the  camp. 
It  is  its  life  —  a  life  that  throbs  out  in 
every  flare  and  flicker  to  enliven  the 
surroundings,  whether  they  be  the  trees 
of  the  forest,  the  expanse  of  prairie, 
shadowed  only  by  clouds  and  night,  or 
the  barren  stretch  of  sandy  shore.  Out 
of  the  encompassing  gloom  of  all  these, 
the  camp-fire  materializes  figures  as  real 
to  the  eye  as  flesh  and  blood.  It  peoples 
the  verge  of  darkness  with  grotesque 
forms,  that  leap  and  crouch  and  sway 
with  the  rise  and  fall  and  bending  of  the 
flame  to  the  wind,  and  that  beckon  the 
fancy  out  to  grope  in  the  mystery  of  night. 

Then  imagination  soars  with  the  up- 
drift  of  smoke  and  the  climbing  galaxy 
of  fading  sparks,  to  where  the  steadfast 
stars  shine  out  of  the  unvisited  realm 
that  only  imagination  can  explore. 
103 


THE   CAMP-FIRE 


The  camp-fire  gives  an  expression  to 
the  human  face  that  it  bears  in  no  other 
light,  a  vague  intentness,  an  absorption 
in  nothing  tangible ;  and  yet  not  a  far- 
away look,  for  it  is  focused  on  the  flame 
that  now  licks  a  fresh  morsel  of  wood, 
now  laps  the  empty  air ;  or  it  is  fixed 
on  the  shifting  glow  of  embers,  whose 
blushes  flush  or  fade  under  their  ashen 
veil.  It  is  not  the  gaze  of  one  who  looks 
past  everything  at  nothing,  or  at  the 
stars  or  the  mountains  or  the  far-away 
sea-horizon ;  but  it  is  centred  on  and 
revealed  only  by  the  camp-fire.  You 
wonder  what  the  gazer  beholds  —  the 
past,  the  future,  or  something  that  is 
neither ;  and  the  uncertain  answer  you 
can  only  get  by  your  own  questioning  of 
the  flickering  blaze. 


As  the  outers  gather  around  this 
cheerful  centre  their  lips  exhale  stories 
of  adventure  by  field  and  flood,  as  natu- 
rally as  the  burning  fuel  does  smoke  and 
sparks,  and  in  that  engendering  warmth, 
no  fish  caught  or  lost,  no  buck  killed 
or  missed,  suffers  shrinkage  in  size  or 
weight,  no  peril  is  lessened,  no  tale  shorn 
104 


THE   CAMP-FIRE 


of  minutest  detail.  All  these  belong  to 
the  camp-fire,  whether  it  is  built  in  con- 
formity to  scientific  rules  or  piled  clum- 
sily by  unskilled  hands.  What  satisfac- 
tion there  is  in  the  partnership  of  build- 
ing this  altar  of  the  camp,  for  though 
a  master  of  woodcraft  superintends,  all 
may  take  a  hand  in  its  erection ;  the 
youngest  and  the  weakest  may  contrib- 
ute a  stick  that  will  brighten  the  blaze. 


What  hospitality  the  glow  of  the 
camp-fire  proclaims  in  inviting  always 
one  more  to  the  elastic  circle  of  light 
and  warmth,  that  if  always  complete,  yet 
expands  to  receive  another  guest.  A 
pillar  of  cloud  by  day,  of  fire  by  night,  it 
is  a  beacon  that  guides  the  wanderer  to 
shelter  and  comfort. 


The  Indian  weed  has  never  such  per- 
fect flavor  as  when,  contending  with  heat 
and  smoke,  one  lights  his  pipe  with  a 
coal  or  an  elusive  flame,  snatched  from 
the  embers  of  the  camp-fire,  and  by  no 
other  fireside  does  the  nicotian  vapor  so 
soothe  the  perturbed  senses,  bring  such 
lazy  contentment,  nor  conjure  such  pleas- 
I05 


THE   CAMP-FIRE 


ant  fancies  out  of  the  border  of  dream- 
land.   

There  is  no  cooking  comparable  with 
that  which  the  camp-fire  affords.  To 
whatever  is  boiled,  stewed,  roasted, 
broiled  or  baked  over  its  blaze,  in  the 
glow  of  its  embers  or  in  its  ashes,  it  im- 
parts a  distinctive  woodsy  flavor  that  it 
distills  out  of  itself  or  draws  from  the 
spiced  air  that  fans  it;  and  the  aroma 
of  every  dish  invites  an  appetite  that  is 
never  disappointed  if  the  supply  be  large 
enough. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that-  the  camp 
stove  gives  forth  warmth  and,  with  more 
comfort  to  the  cook,  serves  to  cook  food 
of  such  tame  flavor  as  one  may  get  at 
home.  But  though  the  serviceable  little 
imp  roar  till  its  black  cheeks  glow  red 
as  winter  berries,  it  cannot  make  shanty 
or  tent  a  camp  in  reality  or  impart  to  an 
outing  its  true  flavor.  This  can  only  be 
given  by  the  generous  camp-fire,  whose 
flames  and  embers  no  narrow  walls  in- 
close, whose  hearth  is  on  every  side, 
whose  chimney  is  the  wide  air. 
106 


XXIV 

A    RAINY    DAY    IN    CAMP 

THE  plans  of  the  camper,  like  those  of 
other  men,  "gang  aft  agley."  The  mor- 
row, which  he  proposed  to  devote  to  some 
long-desired  hunting  or  fishing  trip,  is  no 
more  apt  to  dawn  propitiously  on  him 
than  on  the  husbandman,  the  mariner, 
or  any  other  mortal  who  look*  to  the 
weather  for  special  favor.  On  the  con- 
trary, instead  of  the  glowing  horizon  and 
the  glory  of  the  sunburst  that  should 
usher  in  the  morning,  the  slow  dawn  is 
quite  apt  to  have' the  unwelcome  accom- 
paniment of  rain. 

The  hearing,  first  alert  of  the  drowsy 
senses,  catches  the  sullen  patter  of  the 
drops  on  tent  or  shanty,  their  spiteful, 
hissing  fall  on  the  smouldering  embers  of 
the  camp-fire,  and  with  a  waft  of  damp 
earth  and  herbage  stealing  into  his  nos- 
trils, the  disappointed  awakener  turns 
fretfully  under  his  blanket,  then  crawls 
107 


A   RAINY   DAY   IN  CAMP 


forth  to  have  his  lingering  hope  smoth- 
ered in  the  veil  of  rain  that  blurs  the 
landscape  almost  to  annihilation. 

He  mutters  anathemas  against  the 
weather,  then  takes  the  day  as  it  has 
come  to  him,  for  better  or  for  worse. 
First,  to  make  the  best  of  it,  he  piles 
high  the  camp-fire,  and  dispels  with  its 
glow  and  warmth  some  cubic  feet  of 
gloom  and  dampness.  Then  he  sets 
about  breakfast-making,  scurrying  forth 
from  shelter  to  fire,  in  rapid  culinary 
forays,  battling  with  the  smoke,  for 
glimpses  of  the  contents  of  kettle  and 
pan.  His  repast  is  as  pungent  with 
smoke  as  the  strong  waters  of  Glenlivat, 
but  if  that  is  valued  for  its  flavor  of  peat- 
reek,  why  should  he  scorn  food  for  the 
like  quality  ? 

Then  if  he  delights  in  petty  warfare 
with  the  elements,  to  bide  the  pelting 
of  the  rain,  to  storm  the  abatis  of  wet 
thickets  and  suffer  the  sapping  and  min- 
ing of  insidious  moisture,  he  girds  up  his 
loins  and  goes  forth  with  rod  or  gun,  as 
his  desire  of  conquest  may  incline  him. 

But  if  he  has  come  to  his  outing 
with  the  intention  of  pursuing  sport  with 
1 08 


A   RAINY   DAY   IN   CAMP 


bodily  comfort,  he  is  at  once  assured 
that  this  is  unattainable  under  the  pres- 
ent conditions  of  the  weather.  Shall  he 
beguile  the  tediousness  of  a  wet  day  in 
camp  with  books  and  papers  ? 

Nay,  if  they  were  not  left  behind  in 
the  busy,  plodding  world  that  he  came 
here  to  escape  from,  they  should  have 
been.  He  wants  nothing  here  that  re- 
minds him  of  traffic  or  politics  ;  nothing 
of  history,  for  now  he  has  only  to  do 
with  the  present  ;  nothing  of  travel,  for 
his  concern  now  is  only  with  the  explo- 
ration of  this  wild  domain.  He  does  not 
wish  to  be  bothered  with  fiction,  idealized 
reality  is  what  he  desires.  Neither  does 
he  care  for  what  other  men  have  written 
of  nature.  Her  book  is  before  him  and 
he  may  read  it  from  first  hands. 

Looking  forth  from  his  snug  shelter 
on  the  circumscribed  landscape,  he 
marvels  at  the  brightness  of  a  distant 
yellow  tree  that  shines  like  a  living 
flame  through  the  veil  of  mist.  The 
blaze  of  his  sputtering  camp-fire  is  not 
brighter.  He  notices,  as  perhaps  he 
never  did  before,  how  distinctly  the 
dark  ramage  of  the  branches  is  traced 
109 


A  RAINY   DAY   IN   CAMP 


among  the  brilliant  leaves,  as  if  with 
their  autumnal  hues  they  were  given 
transparency.  Some  unfelt  waft  of  the 
upper  air  casts  aside  for  a  moment  the 
curtain  of  mist  and  briefly  discloses  a 
mountain  peak,  radiant  with  all  the  hues 
of  autumn,  and  it  is  as  if  one  were 
given,  as  in  a  dream,  a  glimpse  of  the 
undiscovered  country.  He  realizes  a 
dreamy  pleasure  in  watching  the  waves 
coming  in  out  of  the  obscurity  and  dash- 
ing on  the  shore,  or  pulsing  away  in 
fading  leaden  lines  into  the  mystery  of 
the  wrack. 

In  the  borders  of  the  mist  the  ducks 
revel  in  the  upper  and  nether  wetness, 
and  with  uncanny  laughter  the  loon  re- 
joices between  his  long  explorations  of 
the  aquatic  depth.  A  mink,  as  heedless 
of  rain  as  the  waterfowl,  comes  stealing 
along  the  shore,  thridding  the  intricacies 
of  driftwood  and  web  of  wave-washed 
tree  roots,  often  peering  out  in  inquisi- 
tive examination  of  the  quiet  camp. 
Less  cautious  visitors  draw  nearer  — 
the  friendly  chickadee,  hanging  from  the 
nearest  twig ;  the  nuthatch,  sounding 
his  penny  trumpet,  accompanied  by  the 


A   RAINY   DAY   IN  CAMP 


tap  of  the  woodpecker,  as  one  creeps 
down,  the  other  up  a  tree  trunk  ;  the 
scolding  jays,  making  as  noisy  protest 
over  human  intrusion  as  if  they  had  just 
discovered  it ;  a  saucy  squirrel,  scoffing 
and  jeering,  till  tired  of  his  raillery  he 
settles  down  to  quiet  nut-rasping  under 
shelter  of  his  tail. 

There  are  unseen  visitors,  too :  wood- 
mice,  astir  under  cover  of  the  fallen 
leaves,  and,  just  discernible  among  the 
patter  of  the  falling  rain  and  of  the  squir- 
rels' filings,  footfalls  unidentified,  till  a 
ruffed  grouse  starts  new  showers  from 
the  wet  branches  in  the  thunder  of  his 
flight. 

Narrowed  to  the  width  of  tent  or 
shanty  front,  the  background  but  a 
pallid  shroud  of  mist,  the  landscape  yet 
holds  much  for  pleasant  study.  But  if 
the  weather-bound  camper  exhausts  this 
or  tires  of  it,  he  may  turn  to  gun-clean- 
ing or  tackle-mending.  If  a  guide  be 
with  him,  he  can  listen  to  his  stories  of 
hunting,  fishing,  and  adventure,  or  learn 
woodcraft  of  him  and  the  curious  ways 
of  birds  and  beasts.  He  may  fashion 
birch-bark  camp-ware,  dippers,  cups,  and 


A   RAINY   DAY   IN   CAMP 


boxes,  or  whittle  a  paddle  from  a  smooth- 
rifted  maple.  If  he  is  of  artistic  turn, 
he  can  pleasantly  devote  an  hour  to 
etching  pictures  on  the  white  under  sur- 
face of  the  fungus  that  grows  on  decay- 
ing trees,  and  so  provide  himself  with 
reminders  of  this  rainy  day  in  camp. 

So,  with  one  and  another  pastime, 
he  whiles  away  the  sunless  day,  which, 
almost  before  he  has  thought  of  it, 
merges  into  the  early  nightfall,  and  he 
is  lulled  to  sleep  by  the  same  sound  that 
wakened  him,  the  drip  and  patter  of  the 
rain.  And  when  he  looks  back  to  these 
days  of  outing  he  may  count  this,  which 
dawned  so  unpropitiously,  not  the  least 
pleasant  and  profitable  among  them,  and 
mark  with  a  white  stone  the  rainy  day 
in  camp. 

112 


XXV 

AUGUST    DAYS 

WITH  such  unmistakable  signs  made 
manifest  to  the  eye  and  ear  the  summer 
signals  its  fullness  and  decline,  that  one 
awakening  now  from  a  sleep  that  fell 
upon  him  months  ago  might  be  assured 
of  the  season  with  the  first  touch  of 
awakening. 

To  the  first  aroused  sense  comes  the 
long-drawn  cry  of  the  locust  fading  into 
silence  with  the  dry,  husky  clap  of  his 
wings  ;  the  changed  voice  of  the  song 
birds,  no  more  caroling  the  jocund  tunes 
of  mating  and  nesting  time,  but  plaintive 
with  the  sadness  of  farewell. 

The  bobolink  has  lost,  with  his  pied 
coat,  the  merry  lilt  that  tinkled  so  con- 
tinually over  the  buttercups  and  daisies 
of  the  June  meadows ;  rarely  the  song 
sparrow  utters  the  trill  that  cheered  us 
in  the  doubtful  days  of  early  spring. 
The  bluebird's  abbreviated  carol  floats 
"3 


AUGUST   DAYS 


down  from  the  sky  as  sweet  as  then, 
but  mournful  as  the  patter  of  autumn 
leaves.  The  gay  goldfinch  has  but 
three  notes  left  of  his  June  song,  as  he 
tilts  on  the  latest  blossoms  and  fluffy 
seeds  of  the  thistles.  The  meadowlark 
charms  us  no  more  with  his  long-drawn 
melody,  but  with  one  sharp,  insistent 
note  he  struts  in  the  meadow  stubble 
or  skulks  among  the  tussocks  of  the 
pasture  and  challenges  the  youthful  gun- 
ner. What  an  easy  shot  that  even, 
steady  flight  offers,  and  yet  it  goes  on- 
ward with  unfaltering  rapid  wing-beats, 
while  the  gun  thunders  and  the  harm- 
less shot  flies  behind  him.  The  flicker 
cackles  now  no  more  as  when  he  was  a 
jubilant  new  comer,  with  the  new-come 
spring  for  his  comrade,  but  is  silent  or 
only  yelps  one  harsh  note  as  he  flashes 
his  golden  wings  in  loping  flight  from 
fence-stake  to  ant-hill. 

The  plover  chuckles  while  he  lingers 
at  the  bounteous  feast  of  grasshoppers, 
but  never  pierces  the  August  air  with 
the  long  wail  that  proclaimed  his  spring- 
time   arrival.     After    nightfall,    too,    is 
heard  his  chuckling  call  fluttering  down 
114 
t 


AUGUST   DAYS 


from  the  aerial  path,  where  he  wends 
his  southward  way,  high  and  distinct 
above  the  shrill  monotony  of  crickets 
and  August  pipers.  The  listening  sports- 
man may  well  imagine  that  the  depart- 
ing bird  is  laughing  at  him  as  much  as 
signaling  his  course  to  companion  way- 
farers. 

The  woodland  thrushes'  flutes  and 
bells  have  ceased  to  breathe  and  chime, 
only  the  wood  pewee  keeps  his  pensive 
song  of  other  days,  yet  best  befitting 
those  of  declining  summer. 

The  trees  are  dark  with  ripened  leaf- 
age ;  out  of  the  twilight  of  the  woodside 
glow  the  declining  disks  of  wild  sun- 
flowers and  shine  the  rising  constella- 
tions of  asters.  The  meadow  sides  are 
gay  with  unshorn  fringes  of  goldenrod 
and  willow-herb,  and  there  in  the  corners 
of  the  gray  fences  droop  the  heavy  clus- 
ters of  elderberries,  with  whose  purple 
juice  the  flocking  robins  and  the  young 
grouse,  stealing  from  the  shadowed 
copses  along  this  belt  of  shade,  dye  their 
bills. 

The  brook  trails  its  attenuated  thread 
out  of  the  woodland  gloom  to  gild  its 
IT5 


AUGUST   DAYS 


shallow  ripples  with  sunshine  and  redden 
them  with  the  inverted  flames  of  the 
cardinals  that  blaze  on  the  sedgy  brink. 
Here  the  brown  mink  prowls  with  her 
lithe  cubs,  all  unworthy  yet  of  the  trap- 
per's skill,  but  tending  toward  it  with 
growth  accelerated  by  full  feasts  of  pool- 
impounded  minnows.  Here,  too,  the 
raccoon  sets  the  print  of  his  footsteps  on 
the  muddy  shores  as  he  stays  his  stom- 
ach with  frogs  and  sharpens  his  appetite 
with  the  hot  sauce  of  Indian  turnip  while 
he  awaits  the  setting  of  his  feast  in  the 
cornfields.  The  hounds  are  more  im- 
patient than  he  for  the  opening  of  his 
midnight  revel,  and  tug  at  their  chains 
and  whimper  and  bay  when  they  hear 
his  querulous  call  trembling  through  the 
twilight.  They  are  even  fooled  to  melo- 
diously mournful  protest  when  their  ears 
catch  the  shriller  quaver  of  the  screech 
owl's  note. 

The  woodcock  skulks  in  the  bordering 
alders,  and  when  forced  to  flight  does 
so  with  a  stronger  wing  than  when  a 
month  ago  his  taking  off  was  first  legally 
authorized.  Another  month  will  make 
him  worthier  game ;  and  then,  too,  the 
116 


AUGUST  DAYS 


ruffed  grouse  need  not  be  spared  a  shot, 
as  full  grown  and  strong  of  pinion  he 
bursts  from  cover;  nor  need  the  wood 
duck,  now  but  a  vigorous  bunch  of  pin 
feathers,  be  let  go  untried  or  unscathed, 
when  from  his  perch  on  a  slanted  log  or 
out  of  a  bower  of  rushes  he  breaks  into 
the  upper  air  with  startling  flutter  of 
wings  and  startled  squeak  of  alarm. 

Summer  wanes,  flowers  fade,  bird 
songs  falter  to  mournful  notes  of  fare- 
well ;  but  while  regretfully  we  mark  the 
decline  of  these  golden  days,  we  remem- 
ber with  a  thrill  of  expectation  that  they 
slope  to  the  golden  days  of  autumn, 
wherein  the  farmer  garners  his  latest 
harvest,  the  sportsman  his  first  worthy 
harvest,  and  that  to  him  that  waits, 
come  all  things,  and  even  though  he 
waits  long,  may  come  the  best. 
117 


XXVI 

A    VOYAGE    IN   THE    DARK 

A  FEW  days  ago,  a  friend  who  is  kind 
and  patient  enough  to  encumber  himself 
with  the  care  of  a  blind  man  and  a  boy 
took  me  and  my  twelve-year-old  a-fishing. 
It  was  with  a  fresh  realization  of  my  de- 
privation that  I  passed  along  the  watery 
way  once  as  familiar  as  the  dooryard  path, 
but  now  shrouded  for  me  in  a  gloom 
more  impenetrable  than  the  blackness  of 
the  darkest  night.  I  could  only  guess  at 
the  bends  and  reaches  as  the  south  wind 
blew  on  one  cheek  or  the  other,  or  on  my 
back,  only  knowing  where  the  channel 
draws  near  the  shore  upon  which  the  In- 
dians encamped  in  the  old  days  by  the 
flutter  of  leaves  overbearing  the  rustle  of 
rushes.  By  the  chuckle  of  ripples  under 
the  bow,  I  guessed  when  we  were  in  mid- 
channel  ;  by  the  entangled  splash  of  an 
oar,  when  we  approached  the  reedy  bor- 
der where  the  water-lilies  rode  at  an- 
118 


A   VOYAGE   IN  THE   DARK 

chor,  and  discharged  their  subtle  freight 
of  perfume  as  they  tossed  in  our  wake. 
I  knew  by  his  clatter,  drawing  nearer 
only  with  our  progress,  that  a  kingfisher 
was  perched  on  a  channel-side  fishing- 
stake,  used  in  turn  by  him  and  bigger 
but  not  more  skillful  fishers.  I  heard 
his  headlong  plunge,  but  whether  success- 
ful or  not  the  ensuing  clatter  did  not  tell 
me,  for  he  has  but  one  voice  for  all  ex- 
pressions. Yet  as  his  rattling  cry  was 
kept  up  till  the  rough  edge  of  its  harsh- 
ness was  worn  away  in  receding  flight, 
I  fancied  he  was  proclaiming  an  unusu- 
ally successful  achievement.  For  the 
sake  of  his  reputation,  he  would  never 
make  such  a  fuss  over  a  failure,  unless 
he  was  telling,  as  we  do,  of  the  big  fish 
he  just  missed  catching.  At  any  rate,  I 
wished  him  good  luck,  for  who  would  be- 
grudge a  poor  kingfisher  such  little  fish 
as  he  must  catch  !  They  would  need 
years  of  growth  to  make  them  worth  our 
catching  or  bragging  over  the  loss  of,  and 
by  that  time  we  may  be  done  with  fish- 
ing. 

Suddenly  there  was  a  roar  of  multitu- 
dinous wings  as  a  host  of  redwings  up- 
119 


A   VOYAGE   IN   THE   DARK 

burst  from  springing  and  swaying  wild 
rice  stalks,  all  of  which  I  saw  through 
the  blackness  illumined  for  an  instant 
by  memory,  —  the  dusky  cloud  uprising 
like  the  smoke  of  an  explosion,  the  bent 
rice  springing  up  beneath  its  lifted  bur- 
den, the  dull-witted  or  greedy  laggards 
dribbling  upward  to  join  the  majority. 
My  companions  exclaimed  in  one  voice  at 
the  rare  sight  of  a  white  bird  in  the  flock, 
and  by  the  same  light  of  memory  I  also 
saw  it  as  I  saw  one  in  an  autumn  forty 
years  ago,  when,  with  my  comrade  of 
those  days,  I  came  "daown-the  crik" 
duck -shooting,  or  trolling  as  to-day. 
Again  and  again  we  saw  this  phenomenal 
bird  like  a  white  star  twinkling  through 
a  murky  cloud.  The  fitful  gleam  was 
seen  day  after  day,  till  the  north  wind 
blew  him  and  his  cloud  away  southward. 
The  pother  of  the  blackbirds  overhead 
disturbed  the  meditations  of  a  bittern, 
who,  with  an  alarmed  croak,  jerked  his 
ungainly  form  aloft  in  a  flurry  of  awk- 
ward wing  -  beats,  and  went  sagging 
across  the  marshes  in  search  of  safer 
seclusion.  I  wished  that  he  might  find 
it,  and  escape  the  ruthless  gunners  that 


A   VOYAGE   IN   THE   DARK 

will  presently  come  to  desolate  these 
marshes.  Very  different  from  his  up- 
rising was  that  of  a  pair  of  wood  ducks, 
revealing  their  unsuspected  presence 
with  startling  suddenness,  as  they  sprang 
from  water  to  air  with  a  splash  and 
whistle  of  rapid  wings  and  their  squeak- 
ing alarm  cry,  and  then  flew  swiftly 
away,  the  sibilant  wing-beats  pulsing  out 
in  the  distance.  These,  too,  I  wished 
might  safely  run  the  gauntlet  of  all  the 
guns  that  will  be  arrayed  against  them 
when  the  summer  truce  is  broken.  If 
I  had  not  been  mustered  out,  or  if  my 
boy  were  mustered  in,  no  doubt  I  should 
feel  differently  toward  the  inhabitants 
of  these  marshes.  Compulsory  absti- 
nence makes  one  exceedingly  virtuous, 
and  because  I  am  virtuous  there  shall  be 
no  cakes  and  ale  for  any  one. 

The  absence  of  the  rail's  cackle  was 
noticeable,  a  clamor  that  used  to  be 
provoked  at  this  season  by  every  sud- 
den noise.  We  never  got  sight  of  the 
"  ma'sh  chickens "  as  they  skulked 
among  the  sedges  ;  and  when  the  birds 
were  pressed  to  flight,  rarely  caught 
more  than  a  fleeting  glimpse  as  they 


A  VOYAGE   IN   THE   DARK 

topped  the  rushes  for  an  instant,  and 
dropped  again  into  the  mazes  of  the 
marsh.  But  they  were  always  announ- 
cing a  numerous  if  invisible  presence 
where  now  not  one  answered  to  our 
voices  or  the  noise  of  our  oars. 

All  this  while  our  trolling  gear  was  in 
tow :  the  boy's  a  "  phantom  minnow " 
bristling  with  barbs,  a  veritable  porcu- 
pine fish  ;  mine  a  fluted  spoon.  The 
larger  fish  seemed  attracted  by  the  bet- 
ter imitation,  or  perhaps  age  and  expe- 
rience had  given  them  discernment  to 
shun  the  other  more  glaring  sham,  and 
the  best  of  them  went  to  the  boy's  score; 
but  the  unwise  majority  of  smaller  fish 
were  evidently  anxious  to  secure  souve- 
nir spoons  of  Little  Otter,  and  in  con- 
sequence of  that  desire  I  was  "high 
hook  "as  to  numbers.  They  were  only 
pickerel  at  best,  though  some  of  them, 
bearing  their  spots  on  a  green  ground, 
are  honored  with  the  name  of  "  maska- 
longe"  by  our  fishermen.  A  scratch  of 
the  finger-nail  across  the  scaly  gill-cover 
gives  proof  enough  to  convince  even  a 
blind  man  of  the  worthlessness  of  this 
claim  to  distinction. 


A   VOYAGE   IN  THE   DARK 

Once  I  enjoyed  an  exaltation  of  spirit 
only  to  suffer  humiliation.  There  was 
a  tug  at  the  hooks,  so  heavy  that  my 
first  thought  was  of  a  snag,  and  I  was 
on  the  point  of  calling  out  to  my  friend 
to  stop  rowing.  Then  there  was  a 
slight  yielding,  and  the  tremor  that  tells 
unmistakably  of  a  fish.  "  Now,"  said  I, 
with  my  heart  but  a  little  way  back  of 
my  teeth,  "  I  am  fast  to  something  like 
a  fish,  but  I  shall  never  be  able  to  boat 
him.  He  is  too  big  to  lift  out  with 
the  hooks,  and  I  can't  see  to  get  him  by 
the  gills,  and  so  I  shall  lose  him."  As 
he  came  in  slowly,  stubbornly  fighting 
against  every  shortening  inch  of  line,  I 
almost  wished  he  had  not  been  hooked 
at  all  only  to  be  lost  at  last.  When, 
after  a  time,  my  fish  was  hauled  near 
the  boat  and  in  sight  of  my  companions, 
my  catch  proved  to  be  no  monster,  but 
a  pickerel  of  very  ordinary  size  hooked 
by  the  belly,  and  so  my  hopes  and  fears 
vanished  together. 

I  think  distances  are  magnified  to  the 
blind,  for  it  seemed  twice  as  far  as  it  did 
of  old  from  the  East  Slang  to  the  South 
123 


A   VOYAGE   IN   THE   DARK 

Slang,  as  we  passed  these  oddly  named 
tributaries  of  Little  Otter. 

At  last  I  sniffed  the  fragrance  of 
cedars  and  heard  the  wash  of  waves  on 
the  southward-slanted  shore  of  Garden 
Island,  and  these  informed  me  we  were 
at  the  lake.  In  confirmation  thereof 
was  the  testimony  of  my  companions, 
given  out  of  their  light  to  my  darkness, 
of  an  eagle's  royal  progress  through  his 
ethereal  realm,  making  inspection  of  his 
disputed  earthly  possession.  I  was  glad 
to  know  that  his  majesty  had  escaped 
the  republican  regicides  who  haunt  the 
summer  shores. 

We  made  a  difficult  landing  on  the 
mainland,  on  the  oozy  shore  of  mixed 
sawdust  and  mud,  and  followed  the  old 
trail  to  the  old  camping  ground  under 
the  rocks,  a  place  full  of  pleasant  memo- 
ries for  the  elder  two  of  our  trio,  and  of- 
fering to  the  boy  the  charms  of  freshness 
and  discovery.  For  him  the  cliff  tow- 
ered skyward  but  little  below  the  eagle's 
flight ;  its  tiny  caves  were  unexplored 
mysteries,  their  coral-beaded  curtains  of 
Canada  yew  and  delicate  netting  of 
mountain-fringe  strange  foreign  growths. 
124 


A   VOYAGE   IN   THE   DARK 

Through  his  undimmed  eyes  I  had 
glimpses  of  those  happy  shores  whereon 
the  sun  always  shines  and  no  cloud 
arises  beyond.  What  a  little  way  be- 
hind they  seem  in  the  voyage  that  has 
grown  wearisome,  and  yet  we  can  never 
revisit  them  for  a  day  nor  for  an  hour, 
and  it  is  like  a  dream  that  we  ever  dwelt 
there. 

Bearing  with  us  from  this  port  some- 
thing not  marketable  nor  even  visible, 
yet  worth  carrying  home,  we  reem- 
barked,  and  the  wind,  blowing  in  my 
face,  informed  me  we  were  homeward 
bound.  One  after  another,  we  passed 
five  boats  of  fishing  parties  tied  up  at  as 
many  stakes,  the  crews  pursuing  their 
pastime  with  steadfast  patience,  as  their 
intent  silence  proclaimed.  To  me  they 
were  as  ships  passed  in  the  night.  I 
had  no  other  knowledge  of  them  than 
this,  except  that  my  friend  told  me  there 
was  a  fat  woman  in  each  boat,  and  that 
one  of  them  boasted  to  us,  with  motherly 
pride,  of  a  big  pickerel  caught  by  her 
little  girl. 

A  blended  hum  of  bumblebees  droned 
in  among  us,  and  my  companions  re- 
I2S 


A   VOYAGE   IN   THE   DARK 

marked  that  one  of  the  aerial  voyagers 
had  boarded  'our  craft,  while  I  main- 
tained there  were  two,  which  proved  to 
be  the  fact;  whereupon  I  argued  that 
my  ears  were  better  than  their  eyes,  but 
failed  to  convince  them  or  even  myself. 
I  welcomed  the  bees  as  old  acquaint- 
ances, who,  in  the  duck-shooting  of  past 
years,  always  used  to  come  aboard  and 
bear  us  company  for  awhile,  rarely  alight- 
ing, but  tacking  from  stem  to  stern  on  a 
cruise  of  inspection,  till  at  last,  satisfied 
or  disappointed,  they  went  booming  out 
of  sight  and  hearing  over  marshfuls  of 
blue  spikes  of  pickerel  weed  and  white 
trinities  of  arrowhead.  I  cannot  imagine 
why  bees  should  be  attracted  to  the  bar- 
renness of  a  boat,  unless  by  a  curiosity 
to  explore  such  strange  floating  islands, 
though  their  dry  wood  promises  neither 
leaf  nor  bloom. 

I  hear  of  people  every  year  w*ho  for- 
sake leafage  and  bloom  to  search  the 
frozen  desolation  of  the  polar  north  for 
the  Lord  knows  what,  and  I  cease  to 
wonder  at  the  bees,  when  men  so  waste 
the  summers  that  are  given  them  to  en- 
joy if  they  will  but  bide  in  them. 
126 


A   VOYAGE   IN   THE   DARK 

We  passed  many  new  houses  of  the 
muskrats,  who  are  building  close  to  the 
channel  this  year  in  prophecy  of  con- 
tinued low  water.  But  muskrats  are 
not  infallible  prophets,  and  sometimes 
suffer  therefor  in  starvation  or  drowning. 
The  labor  of  the  night-workers  was  sus- 
pended in  the  glare  of  the  August  after- 
noon, and  their  houses  were  as  silent  as 
if  deserted,  though  we  doubted  not  there 
were  happy  households  inside  them,  un- 
troubled by  dreams  of  famine  or  del- 
uge, or  possibly  of  the  unmercifulness  of 
man,  though  that  seems  an  abiding  ter- 
ror with  our  lesser  brethren.  Winter 
before  last  the  marshes  were  frozen  to 
the  bottom,  blockading  the  muskrats  in 
their  houses,  where  entire  families  per- 
ished miserably  after  being  starved  to 
cannibalism.  Some  dug  out  through 
the  house  roofs,  and  wandered  far  across 
the  desolate  wintry  fields  in  search  of 
food.  Yet  nature,  indifferent  to  all 
fates,  has  so  fostered  them  since  that 
direful  season  that  the  marshy  shores 
are  populous  again  with  sedge-thatched 
houses. 

As  we  neared  our  home  port  we  met 
127 


A  VOYAGE  IN   THE   DARK 

two  trollers,  one  of  whom  lifted  up 
for  envious  inspection  a  lusty  pickerel. 
"  He  's  as  big  as  your  leg,"  my  friend 
replied  to  my  inquiry  concerning  its 
dimensions,  and  in  aid  of  my  further  in- 
quisitiveness  asked  the  lucky  captor  how 
much  the  fish  would  weigh.  "  Wai,  I 
guess  he  ought  to  weigh  abaout  seven 
pounds,"  was  answered,  after  careful 
consideration.  We  learned  afterwards 
that  its  actual  weight  was  nine  pounds, 
and  I  set  that  man  down  as  a  very  hon- 
est angler. 

Presently  our  boat  ran  her  nose  into 
the  familiar  mire  of  well-named  Mud 
Landing,  and  we  exchanged  oars  for 
legs,  which  we  plied  with  right  good 
will,  for  a  thunderstorm  was  beginning 
to  bellow  behind  us. 
128 


XXVII 

THE    SUMMER   CAMP-FIRE 

A  THIN  column  of  smoke  seen  rising 
lazily  among  the  leafy  trees  and  fading 
to  a  wavering  film  in  the  warm  morning 
air  or  the  hotter  breath  of  noon,  a  flick- 
ering blaze  kindling  in  the  sultry  dusk 
on  some  quiet  shore,  mark  the  place  of 
the  summer  camp-fire. 

It  is  not,  like  the  great  hospitable 
flare  and  glowing  coals  of  the  autumn 
and  winter  camp-fires,  the  centre  to 
which  all  are  drawn,  about  which  the 
life  of  the  camp  gathers,  where  joke  and 
repartee  flash  to  and  fro  as  naturally  and 
as  frequently  as  its  own  sparks  fly  up- 
ward, where  stories  come  forth  as  con- 
tinuously as  the  ever-rising  volume  of 
smoke. 

Rather   it  is  avoided  and  kept  aloof 

from,    held    to   only    by   the    unhappy 

wretch  upon  whom  devolves  the  task  of 

tending  the  pot  and  frying-pan,  and  he 

129 


THE   SUMMER   CAMP-FIRE 

hovers  near  it  fitfully,  like  a  moth  about 
a  candle,  now  backing  away  to  mop  his 
hot  face,  now  darting  into  the  torrid 
circle  to  turn  a  fish  or  snatch  away  a 
seething  pot  or  sizzling  pan.  Now  and 
then  the  curious  and  hungry  approach  to 
note  with  what  skill  or  speed  the  cookery 
is  progressing,  but  they  are  content  to 
look  on  at  a  respectful  distance  and  to 
make  suggestions  and  criticisms,  but  not 
to  interfere  with  aid.  The  epicurean 
smoker,  who  holds  that  the  finest  flavor 
of  tobacco  is  evoked  only  by  coal  or  blaz- 
ing splinter,  steals  down  upon  the  wind- 
ward side  and  snatches  a  reluctant  em- 
ber or  an  elusive  flame  that  flickers  out 
on  the  brink  of  the  pipe  bowl,  but  most 
who  burn  the  weed  are  content  now  to 
kindle  it  with  the  less  fervid  flame  of  a 
match. 

And  yet  this  now  uncomfortable  ne- 
cessity is  still  the  heart  of  the  camp, 
which  without  it  would  be  but  a  halting 
place  for  a  day,  where  one  appeases  hun- 
ger with  a  cold  bite  and  thirst  with 
draughty  of  tepid  water,  and  not  a  tem- 
porary home  where  man  has  his  own 
fireside,  though  he  care  not  to  sit  near 
130 


THE   SUMMER   CAMP-FIRE 

it,  and  feasts  full  on  hot  viands  and  re- 
freshes himself  with  the  steaming  cup 
that  cheers  but  not  inebriates. 

Its  smoke  drifted  far  through  the 
woods  may  prove  a  pungent  trail,  scented 
out  among  the  odors  of  balsams  and  the 
perfume  of  flowers  that  shall  lead  hither 
some  pleasant  stranger  or  unexpected 
friend,  or  its  firefly  glow,  flashing  but 
feebly  through  the  gloaming,  may  be  a 
beacon  that  shall  bring  such  company. 
In  its  praise  may  also  be  said  that  the 
s.ummer  camp-fire  demands  no  laborious 
feeding  nor  careful  tending,  is  always  a 
servant,  seldom  a  master. 


XXVIII 

THE    RACCOON 

SUMMER  is  past  its  height.  The  song- 
less  bobolink  has  forsaken  the  shorn 
meadow.  Grain  fields,  save  the  battal- 
ioned  maize,  have  fallen  from  gracefulness 
and  beauty  of  bending  heads  and  ripple 
of  mimic  waves  to  bristling  acres  of 
stubble.  From  the  thriftless  borders  of 
ripening  weeds  busy  flocks  of  yellow- 
birds  in  faded  plumage  scatter  in  sud- 
den flight  at  one's  approach  like  upblown 
flurries  of  dun  leaves.  Goldenrod  gilds 
the  fence-corners,  asters  shine  in  the 
dewy  borders  of  the  woods,  sole  surviv- 
ors of  the  floral  world  save  the  persist- 
ent bloom  of  the  wild  carrot  and  suc- 
cory—  flourishing  as  if  there  had  never 
been  mower  or  reaper  —  and  the  white 
blossoms  of  the  buckwheat  crowning  the 
filling  kernels.  The  fervid  days  have 
grown  preceptibly  shorter,  the  length- 
ening nights  have  a  chilly  autumnal 
132 


THE   RACCOON 


flavor,  and  in  the  cool  dusk  the  katy- 
dids call  and  answer  one  to  another  out 
of  their  leafy  tents,  and  the  delicate 
green  crickets  that  Yankee  folks  call 
August  pipers  play  their  monotonous 
tune.  Above  the  katydid's  strident  cry 
and  the  piper's  incessant  notes,  a  wild 
tremulous  whinny  shivers  through  the 
gloom  at  intervals,  now  from  a  distant 
field  or  wood,  now  from  the  near  or- 
chard. One  listener  will  tell  you  that 
it  is  only  a  little  screech  owl's  voice,  an- 
other that  it  is  the  raccoon's  rallying 
cry  to  a  raid  on  the  cornfield.  There 
is  endless  disputation  concerning  it  and 
apparently  no  certainty,  but  the  rac- 
coon is  wilder  than  the  owl,  and  it  is 
pleasanter  to  believe  that  it  is  his  voice 
that  you  hear. 

The  corn  is  in  the  milk  ;  the  feast  is 
ready.  The  father  and  mother  and  well 
grown  children,  born  and  reared  in  the 
cavern  of  a  ledge  or  hollow  tree  of  a 
swamp,  are  hungry  for  sweets  remem- 
bered or  yet  untasted,  and  they  are 
gathering  to  it,  stealing  out  of  the  thick 
darkness  of  the  woods  and  along  the 
brookside  in  single  file,  never  stopping  to 


THE   RACCOON 


dig  a  fiery  wake-robin  bulb  nor  to  catch 
a  frog  nor  harry  a  late  brood  of  ground- 
nesting  birds,  but  only  to  call  some  lag- 
gard, or  distant  clansfolk.  So  one  fan- 
cies, when  the  quavering  cry  is  repeated 
and  when  it  ceases,  that  all  the  free- 
booters have  gained  the  cornfield  and  are 
silent  with  busy  looting.  Next  day's  ex- 
amination of  the  field  may  confirm  the 
fancy  with  the  sight  of  torn  and  trampled 
stalks  and  munched  ears.  These  are 
the  nights  when  the  coon  hunter  is 
abroad  and  the  robbers'  revel  is  likely 
to  be  broken  up  in  a  wild  panic. 

Hunted  only  at  night,  to  follow  the 
coon  the  boldest  rider  must  dismount, 
yet  he  who  risks  neck  and  limbs,  or 
melts  or  freezes  for  sport's  sake,  and 
deems  no  sport  manly  that  has  not  a 
spice  of  danger  or  discomfort  in  it,  must 
not  despise  this  humble  pastime  for  such 
reason. 

On  leaving  the  highway  that  leads 
nearest  to  the  hunting  ground,  the  way 
of  the  coon  hunters  takes  them,  in  dark- 
ness or  feeble  lantern  light,  over  rough 
and  uncertain  footing,  till  the  cornfield's 
edge  is  reached  and  the  dogs  cast  off. 


THE   RACCOON 


Away  go  the  hounds,  their  course  only 
indicated  by  the  rustling  of  the  corn 
leaves,  as  they  range  through  the  field, 
until  one  old  truth-teller  gives  tongue 
on  the  track  of  a  coon  who  perhaps  has 
brought  his  whole  family  out  on  a  noc- 
turnal picnic.  The  hounds  sweep  straight 
away,  in  full  cry,  on  the  hot  scent  to  hill 
or  swamp,  where  their  steadfast  baying 
proclaims  that  the  game  is  treed. 

Then  follows  a  pell-mell  scramble  to- 
ward the  musical  uproar.  Stones,  cra- 
dle knolls,  logs,  stumps,  mud  holes, 
brambles  and  all  the  inanimate  enemies 
that  lie  in  wait  for  man  when  he  has- 
tens in  the  dark,  combine  to  trip,  bump, 
bruise,  sprain,  scratch,  and  bemire  the 
hurrying  hunters. 

Then  when  all  have  gathered  at  the 
centre  of  attraction,  where  the  excited 
hounds  are  raving  about  the  boll  of  some 
great  tree,  the  best  and  boldest  climber 
volunteers  to  go  aloft  into  the  upper 
darkness  and  shake  the  quarry  down  or 
shoot  him  if  may  be.  If  he  succeeds 
in  accomplishing  the  difficult  task,  what 
a  mele"e  ensues  when  the  coon  crashes 
through  the  branches  to  the  ground  and 


THE   RACCOON 


becomes  the  erratic  centre  of  the  wild 
huddle  of  dogs  and  men. 

Fewer  voices  never  broke  the  stillness 
of  night  with  sounds  more  unearthly 
than  the  medley  of  raging,  yelping, 
growling,  cheering,  and  vociferous  orders 
given  forth  by  dogs,  coon,  and  hunters, 
while  hillside  and  woodland  toss  to  and 
fro  a  more  discordant  badinage  of  echo. 
The  coon  is  not  a  great  beast,  but  a 
tough  and  sharp-toothed  one,  who  carries 
beneath  his  gray  coat  and  fat  ribs  a  stout 
heart  and  wonderful  vitality ;  and  a 
tussle  with  a  veteran  of  the  tribe  of 
cornfield  robbers  tests  the  pluck  of  the 
dogs. 

If  the  coon  takes  refuge  in  a  tree  too 
tall  and  limbless  for  his  pursuers  to 
climb,  there  is  nothing  for  them  but  to 
keep  watch  and  ward  till  daylight  dis- 
covers him  crouched  on  his  lofty  perch. 
A  huge  fire  enlivens  the  long  hours  of 
guard  keeping.  A  foraging  party  repairs 
to  the  nearest  cornfield  for  roasting  ears, 
and  the  hunters  shorten  the  slow  night- 
tide  with  munching  scorched  corn, 
sauced  by  joke  and  song  and  tales  of  the 
coon  hunts  of  bygone  years. 
136 


THE   RACCOON 


The  waning  moon  throbs  into  view 
above  a  serrated  hill-crest,  then  climbs 
the  sky,  while  the  shadows  draw  east- 
ward, then  pales  in  the  dawn,  and  when 
it  is  like  a  blotch  of  white  cloud  in  the 
zenith,  a  sunrise  gun  welcomes  day  and 
brings  the  coon  tumbling  to  earth.  Or 
perhaps  not  a  coon,  but  some  vagrant 
house  cat  is  the  poor  reward  of  the  long 
watch.  Then  the  weary  hunters  plod 
homeward  to  breakfast  and  to  nail  their 
trophies  to  the  barn  door. 

When  the  sweet  acorns,  dropping  in 
the  frosty  night,  tempt  the  coon  to  a 
later  feast,  there  is  as  good  sport  and 
primer  peltry.  In  any  of  the  nights 
wherein  this  sport  may  be  pursued,  the 
man  of  lazy  mould  and  contemplative 
mind  loves  best  the  hunt  deemed  unsuc- 
cessful by  the  more  ardent  hunters, 
when  the  hounds  strike  the  trail  of  a 
wandering  fox  and  carry  a  tide  of  wild 
music,  flooding  and  ebbing  over  valley 
and  hilltop,  while  the  indolent  hunter 
reclines  at  ease,  smoking  his  pipe  and 
listening,  content  to  let  more  ambitious 
hunters  stumble  over  ledges  and  wallow 
through  swamps. 

137 


THE   RACCOON 


When  winter  begins,  the  coon  retires 
for  a  long  and  comfortable  sleep,  warmly 
clothed  in  fur  and  fat.  A  great  mid- 
winter thaw  awakens  him,  fooled  out  of 
a  part  of  his  nap  by  the  siren  song  of 
the  south  wind,  and  he  wanders  forth  in 
quest  of  something.  If  food,  he  never 
finds  it,  and  as  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  determine,  does  not  even  seek  it.  I 
should  imagine,  reading  the  record  of  his 
journey  as  he  prints  it  in  his  course  from 
hollow  tree  or  hollow  ledge  to  other 
hollow  trees  and  hollow  ledges,  that  he 
had  been  awakened  to  a  sense  of  lone- 
liness and  was  seeking  old  friends  in 
familiar  haunts,  with  whom  to  talk  over 
last  year's  cornfield  raids  and  frogging 
parties  in  past  summer  nights  —  per- 
chance to  plan  future  campaigns.  Or  is 
it  an  inward  fire  and  no  outward  warmth 
that  has  thawed  him  into  this  sudden 
activity  ?  Has  he,  like  many  of  his  big- 
gers  and  betters,  gone  a-wooing  in  winter 
nights  ? 

At  such  times  the  thrifty  hunter  who 
has  an  eye  more  to  profit  and  prime  pel- 
try than  to  sport,  goes  forth  armed  only 
with  an  axe.  Taking  the  track  of  the 
138 


THE   RACCOON 


wanderers,  he  follows  it  to  their  last 
tarrying  place.  If  it  be  a  cave,  they  are 
safe  except  from  the  trap  when  they 
come  forth  to  begin  another  journey;  but 
if  it  is  a  hollow  tree,  woe  betide  the  poor 
wretches.  The  hunter  saps  the  founda- 
tion of  their  castle,  and  when  it  crashes 
to  its  fall  he  ignominiously  knocks  the 
dazed  inmates  on  the  head.  It  is  fashion- 
able for  others  to  wear  the  coat  which 
becomes  the  raccoon  much  better  than 
them  and  which  once  robbed  of  he  can 
never  replace. 

During  the  spring  and  early  summer 
little  is  seen  of  the  raccoon.  His  tracks 
may  be  found  on  a  sandy  shore  or  margin 
of  a  brook  and  occasionally  his  call  can 
be  heard,  if  indeed  it  be  his,  but  beyond 
these  he  gives  little  evidence  of  his  exist- 
ence. There  must  be  nocturnal  excur- 
sions for  food,  but  for  the  most  part  old 
and  young  abide  in  their  rocky  fortress 
or  wooden  tower.  They  are  reported  to 
be  a  playful  family,  and  the  report  is 
confirmed  by  the  pranks  of  domesticated 
members  of  it.  Sometimes  there  will  be 
found  in  one  of  their  ravaged  homes  a 
rounded  gnarl  worn  smooth  with  much 


THE   RACCOON 


handling  or  pawing,  the  sole  furniture 
of  the  house  and  evidently  a  plaything. 

This  little  brother  of  the  bear  is  one 
of  the  few  remaining  links  that  connect 
us  with  the  old  times,  when  there  were 
trees  older  than  living  men,  when  all  the 
world  had  not  entered  for  the  race  to 
gain  the  prize  of  wealth,  or  place,  or  re- 
nown ;  when  it  was  the  sum  of  all  happi- 
ness for  some  of  us  to  "go  a-coonin'." 
It  is  pleasant  to  see  the  track  of  this 
midnight  prowler,  this  despoiler  of  corn- 
fields, imprinted  in  the  mud  of  the  lane 
or  along  the  soft  margin  of  the  brook,  to 
know  that  he  survives,  though  he  may 
not  be  the  fittest.  When  he  has  gone 
forever,  those  who  outlive  him  will  know 
whether  it  was  his  quavering  note  that 
jarred  the  still  air  of  the  early  fall  even- 
ings or  if  it  was  only  the  voice  of  the 
owl  —  if  he  too  shall  not  then  have  gone 
the  inevitable  way  of  all  the  wild  world. 
140 


XXIX 

THE    RELUCTANT    CAMP-FIRE 

THE  depressing  opposite  of  the  fire 
that  is  the  warm  heart  of  the  camp  is 
the  pile  of  green  or  rain-soaked  fuel  that 
in  spite  of  all  coaxing  and  nursing  re- 
fuses to  yield  a  cheerful  flame.  Shav- 
ings from  the  resin-embalmed  heart  of  a 
dead  pine  and  scrolls  of  birch  bark  fail 
to  enkindle  it  to  more  than  flicker  and 
smoke,  while  the  wet  and  hungry  campers 
brood  forlornly  over  the  cheerless  centre 
of  their  temporary  home,  with  watery 
eyes  and  souls  growing  sick  of  camp  life. 

Night  is  falling,  and  the  shadows  of 
the  woods  thicken  into  solid  gloom  that 
teems  with  mysterious  horrors,  which 
stretch  their  intangible  claws  through 
the  darkness  to  chill  the  backs  of  the 
timid  with  an  icy  touch,  and  the  silence 
is  terrible  with  unuttered  howlings  of 
imaginary  beasts. 

Each  one  is  ready  to  blame  the  other 
for  the  common  discomfort,  and  all,  the 
141 


THE   RELUCTANT   CAMP-FIRE 

high  priest,  who  so  far  fails  to  kindle 
the  altar  fire.  He  is  an  impostor,  who 
should  be  smothered  in  the  reek  of  his 
own  failure.  Yet,  as  the  group  regard 
him  with  unkind  glances  and  mutterings 
of  disapproval,  he  perseveres,  feeding 
the  faint  flame  with  choice  morsels  of 
fat  wood  and  nursing  it  with  his  breath, 
his  bent  face  and  puffed  cheeks  now  a 
little  lightened,  now  fading  into  gloom, 
till  suddenly  the  sullenness  of  the  reluc- 
tant fuel  is  overcome,  wings  of  flame  flut- 
ter up  the  column  of  smoke,  and  the 
black  pile  leaps  inta  a  lurid  tower  of 
light,  from  whose  peak  a  white  banner 
of  smoke  flaunts  upward,  saluted  by  the 
waving  boughs  that  it  streams  among. 

Tent  and  shanty,  familiar  trees,  and 
moving  figures  with  their  circle  of 
grotesque,  dancing  shadows,  spring  into 
sudden  existence  out  of  the  blank  dark- 
ness. The  magic  touch  of  the  firelight 
dispels  every  sullen  look,  warms  every 
heart  to  genial  comradeship ;  jokes  flash 
back  and  forth  merrily,  and  the  camp 
pulses  again  with  reawakened  cheerful 
life.  Verily,  fire  worketh  wonders  in 
divers  ways. 

142 


XXX 

SEPTEMBER   DAYS 

SEPTEMBER  days  have  the  warmth  of 
summer  in  their  briefer  hours,  but  in 
their  lengthening  evenings  a  prophetic 
breath  of  autumn.  The  cricket  chirps 
in  the  noontide,  making  the  most  of 
what  remains  of  his  brief  life  ;  the  bum- 
blebee is  busy  among  the  clover  blos- 
soms of  the  aftermath  ;  and  their  shrill 
cry  and  dreamy  hum  hold  the  outdoor 
world  above  the  voices  of  the  song  birds, 
now  silent  or  departed. 

What  a  little  while  ago  they  were  our 
familiars,  noted  all  about  us  in  their  ac- 
customed haunts  —  sparrow,  robin,  and 
oriole,  each  trying  now  and  then,  as  if 
to  keep  it  in  memory,  a  strain  of  his 
springtime  love  song,  and  the  cuckoo 
fluting  a  farewell  prophecy  of  rain.  The 
bobolinks,  in  sober  sameness  of  traveling 
gear,  still  held  the  meadowside  thickets 
of  weeds  ;  and  the  swallows  sat  in  sedate 


SEPTEMBER   DAYS 


conclave  on  the  barn  ridge.  Then,  look- 
ing and  listening  for  them,  we  suddenly 
become  aware  they  are  gone ;  the  adobe 
city  of  the  eave-dwellers  is  silent  and 
deserted ;  the  whilom  choristers  of  the 
sunny  summer  meadows  are  departed  to 
a  less  hospitable  welcome  in  more  genial 
climes.  How  unobtrusive  was  their  ex- 
odus. We  awake  and  miss  them,  or  we 
think  of  them  and  see  them  not,  and 
then  we  realize  that  with  them  summer 
too  has  gone. 

This  also  the  wafted  thistledown  and 
the  blooming  asters  tell  us,  and,  though 
the  woods  are  dark  with  their  latest 
greenness,  in  the  lowlands  the  gaudy 
standard  of  autumn  is  already  displayed. 
In  its  shadow  the  muskrat  is  thatching 
his  winter  home,  and  on  his  new-shorn 
watery  lawn  the  full-fledged  wild  duck 
broods  disport  in  fullness  of  feather  and 
strength  of  pinion.  Evil  days  are  these 
of  September  that  now  befall  them. 
Alack,  for  the  callow  days  of  peaceful 
summer,  when  no  honest  gunner  was 
abroad,  and  the  law  held  the  murderous 
gun  in  abeyance,  and  only  the  keel  of 
the  unarmed  angler  rippled  the  still 
144 


SEPTEMBER   DAYS 


channel.  Continual  unrest  and  abiding 
fear  are  their  lot  now  and  henceforth, 
till  spring  brings  the  truce  of  close  time 
to  their  persecuted  race. 

More  silently  than  the  fisher's  craft 
the  skiff  of  the  sportsman  now  invades 
the  rush  -  paled  thoroughfares.  Noise- 
less as  ghosts,  paddler  and  shooter  glide 
along  the  even  path  till,  alarmed  by 
some  keener  sense  than  is  given  us,  up 
rise  wood  duck,  dusky  duck,  and  teal 
from  their  reedy  cover.  Then  the  ready 
gun  belches  its  thunder,  and  suddenly 
consternation  pervades  the  marshes. 
All  the  world  has  burst  forth  in  a  burn- 
ing of  powder.  From  end  to  end,  from 
border  to  border,  the  fenny  expanse 
roars  with  discharge  and  echo,  and  no- 
where within  it  is  there  peace  or  rest  for 
the  sole  of  a  webbed  foot.  Even  the 
poor  bittern  and  heron,  harmless  and 
worthless,  flap  to  and  fro  from  one  to 
another  now  unsafe  retreat,  in  constant 
danger  of  death  from  every  booby  gun- 
ner who  can  cover  their  slow  flight. 

The  upland  woods,  too,  are  awakened 
from  the  slumber  of  their  late  summer 
days.  How  silent  they  had  grown  when 
'45 


SEPTEMBER   DAYS 


their  songsters  had  departed,  rarely 
stirred  but  by  the  woodpecker's  busy 
hammer,  the  chatter  and  bark  of  squir- 
rels, and  the  crows  making  vociferous 
proclamation  against  some  winged  or 
furred  enemy.  The  grouse  have  waxed 
fat  among  the  border  patches  of  berry 
bushes,  rarely  disturbed  in  the  seclusion 
of  the  thickets  but  by  the  soft  footfall 
of  the  fox,  the  fleeting  shadow  of  a  cruis- 
ing hawk,  and  the  halloo  of  the  cowboy 
driving  home  his  herd  from  the  hillside 
pasture.  Now  come  enemies  more  re- 
lentless than  beast  or  bird  of  prey,  a 
sound  more  alarming  than  the  cowboy's 
distant  call  —  man  and  his-  companion 
the  dog,  and  the  terrible  thunder  of%the 
gun.  A  new  terror  is  revealed  to  the 
young  birds,  a  half-forgotten  one  brought 
afresh  to  the  old.  The  crows  have  found 
fresh  cause  for  clamor,  and  the  squirrels 
lapse  into  a  silence  of  fear. 

Peace  and  the  quietness  of  peace  have 
departed  from  the  realm  of  the  woods, 
and  henceforth  while  the  green  leaves 
grow  bright  as  blossoms  with  the  touch 
of  frost,  then  brown  and  sere,  and  till 
long  after  they  lie  under  the  white 
146 


SEPTEMBER   DAYS 


shroud  of  winter,  its  wild  denizens  shall 
abide  in  constant  fear  and  unrest. 

So  fares  it  with  the  wood-folk,  these 
days  of  September,  wherein  the  sports- 
man rejoiceth  with  exceeding  gladness. 
'47 


XXXI 

A    PLEA   FOR   THE    UNPROTECTED 

WHY  kill,  for  the  mere  sake  of  killing 
or  the  exhibition  of  one's  skill,  any  wild 
thing  that  when  alive  harms  no  one  and 
when  killed  is  of  no  worth  ?  The  more 
happy  wild  life  there  is  in  the  world,  the 
pleasanter  it  is  for  all  of  us. 

When  one  is  duck-shooting  on  inland 
waters,  sitting  alert  in  the  bow  of  the 
skiff  with  his  gun  ready  for  the  expected 
gaudy  wood  duck,  or  plump  mallard,  or 
loud  quacking  dusky  duck,  or  swift- 
winged  teal,  to  rise  with  a  splashing 
flutter  out  of  the  wild  rice,  and  there  is 
a  sudden  beating  of  broad  wings  among 
the  sedges  with  a  startled  guttural  quack, 
and  one's  heart  leaps  to  his  throat  and 
his  gun  to  his  shoulder,  and  then  —  only 
an  awkward  bittern  climbs  the  Septem- 
ber breeze  with  a  slow  incline,  there  is 
a  vengeful  temptation  to  let  drive  at 
the  disappointing  good-for-nothing.  But 
148 


A   PLEA   FOR  THE   UNPROTECTED 

why  not  let  the  poor  fellow  go  ?  If  you 
dropped  him  back  into  the  marsh  to 
rot  unprofitably  there,  disdained  even  by 
the  mink,  unattainable  to  the  scavenger 
skunk,  what  good  would  it  do  you  ?  If 
he  disappointed  you,  you  disturbed  him 
in  his  meditations,  or  in  the  pursuit  of 
a  poor  but  honest  living.  Perhaps  a 
great  heron  too  intent  on  his  fishing 
or  frogging,  or  dozing  in  the  fancied  se- 
clusion of  his  reedy  bower,  springs  up 
within  short  range  and  goes  lagging 
away  on  his  broad  vans.  He  may  be 
taken  home  to  show,  for  he  is  worth 
showing  even  when  killed.  But  if  you 
wish  your  friends  to  see  him  at  his  best, 
bring  them  to  him  and  let  them  see  how 
well  he  befits  these  sedgy  levels  —  a 
goodly  sight,  whether  he  makes  his  lazy 
flight  above  them  or  stands  a  motion- 
less sentinel  in  the  oozy  shallows.  The 
marshes  would  be  desolate  .without  him, 
or  if  one  desires  the  charm  of  loneliness, 
his  silent  presence  adds  to  it. 

A  kingfisher  comes  clattering  along 

the  channel.     As  he  jerks  his  swift  way 

over   the   sluggish   water   he   may   test 

your   marksmanship,    but   as   he   hangs 

149 


A   PLEA    FOR  THE   UNPROTECTED 

with  rapid  wing-beats  over  a  school  of 
minnows,  as  steadfast  for  a  minute  as  a 
star  forever,  needing  no  skill  to  launch 
him  to  his  final  unrewarded  plunge,  do 
not  kill  him  !  In  such  waters  he  takes 
no  fish  that  you  would,  and  he  enlivens 
the  scene  more  than  almost  any  other 
frequenter  of  it,  never  skulking  and  hid- 
ing, but  with  metallic,  vociferous  clatter 
heralding  his  coming.  One  never  tires 
of  watching  his  still  mid-air  poise,  the 
same  in  calm  or  wind,  and  his  unerring 
headlong  plunge. 

When  one  wanders  along  a  willowy 
stream  with  his  gun,  cautiously  approach- 
ing every  lily -padded  pool 'and  shadowed 
bend  likely  to  harbor  wood  duck  or  teal, 
and  finds  neither,  and  his  ears  begin  to 
ache  for  the  sound  of  his  gun  —  if  a 
green  heron  flaps  off  a  branch  before  him 
he  is  sorely  tempted  to  shoot  the  un- 
gainly bird,  tyit  if  the  gun  must  be  heard, 
let  it  speak  to  a  stump  or  a  tossed  chip, 
either  as  difficult  a  target  as  he,  and  let 
the  poor  harmless  little  heron  live.  Un- 
couth as  he  is,  he  comes  in  well  in  the 
picture  of  such  a  watercourse,  which  has 
done  with  the  worry  of  turning  mills, 
150 


A   PLEA   FOR   THE   UNPROTECTED 

left  far  behind  with  their  noise  and  bustle 
on  foaming  rapids  among  the  hills,  and 
crawls  now  in  lazy  ease  through  wide  in- 
tervales, under  elms  and  water  maples 
and  thickets  of  willows. 

On  the  uplands,  where  the  meadow 
lark  starts  out  of  the  grass  with  a 
sharp,  defiant  "zeet!"  and  speeds  away 
on  his  steady  game-like  flight,  remem- 
ber before  you  stop  it,  or  try  to,  of  how 
little  account  he  is  when  brought  to 
bag  ;  and  how  when  the  weary  days  of 
winter  had  passed,  his  cheery  voice  wel- 
comed the  coming  spring,  a  little  later 
than  the  robin's,  a  little  earlier  than 
the  flicker's  cackle ;  and  what  an  enliv- 
ening dot  of  color  his  yellow  breast 
made  where  he  strutted  in  the  dun,  bare 
meadows. 

In  some  States  the  woodpeckers  are 
unprotected  and  are  a  mark  for  every 
gunner.  Their  galloping  flight  tempts 
the  ambitious  young  shooter  to  try  his 
skill,  but  they  are  among  the  best  friends 
of  the  arboriculturist  and  the  fruit- 
grower, for  though  some  of  them  steal 
cherries  and  peck  early  apples,  and  one 
species  sucks  the  sap  of  trees,  they  are 


A   PLEA   FOR  THE   UNPROTECTED 

the  only  birds  that  search  out  and  kill 
the  insidious,  destructive  borer. 

In  some  States,  too,  the  hare  is  unpro- 
tected by  any  law,  and  it  is  common  cus- 
tom to  hunt  it,  even  so  late  as  April,  for 
the  mere  sake  of  killing,  apparently ;  or 
perhaps  the  charm  of  the  hound's  music, 
which  makes  the  butchery  of  Adiron- 
dack deer  so  delightful  a  sport  to  some, 
adds  a  zest  to  the  slaughter  of  these  in- 
nocents —  though,  be  it  said,  there  is 
no  comparison  in  the  marksmanship  re- 
quired. Alive,  the  northern  hare  is  one 
of  the  most  harmless  of  animals  ;  dead, 
he  is,  in  the  opinion  of  most  people,  one 
of  the  most  worthless  ;  so  worthless  that 
hunters  frequently  leave  the  result  of  all 
their  day's  "  sport "  in  the  woods  where 
they  were  killed.  Yet  the  hare  is  le- 
gitimate game,  and  should  be  hunted 
as  such,  and  only  in  proper  seasons, 
and  not  be  ruthlessly  exterminated.  A 
woodland  stroll  is  the  pleasanter  if  one 
sees  a  hare  there  in  his  brown  summer 
suit,  or  white  as  the  snow  about  him  in 
his  winter  furs. 

Where  there  are  no  statute  laws  for 
the  protection  of  game  and  harmless 
IS2 


A   PLEA   FOR  THE   UNPROTECTED 

creatures  not  so  classed,  an  unwritten 
law  of  common  sense,  common  decency, 
and  common  humanity  should  be  power- 
ful enough  to  protect  all  these.  The  fox 
is  an  outlaw ;  it  is  every  one's  legal  right 
to  kill  him  whenever  and  however  he 
may,  and  yet  wherever  the  fox  is  hunted 
with  any  semblance  of  fair  play,  whether 
in  New  England  with  gun  and  hound, 
or  elsewhere  with  horse  and  hound,  the 
man  who  traps  a  fox,  or  kills  one  unsea- 
sonably, or  destroys  a  vixen  and  her  cubs, 
bears  an  evil  reputation.  A  sentiment 
as  popular  and  as  potent  ought  to  prevail 
to  protect  those  that,  though  harmless, 
are  as  unshielded  by  legislative  enact- 
ments as  the  fox,  and  much  less  guarded 
by  natural  laws  and  inborn  cunning. 


XXXII 

THE    SKUNK 

ALWAYS  and  everywhere  in  evil  re- 
pute and  bad  odor,  hunted,  trapped,  and 
killed,  a  pest  and  a  fur-bearer,  it  is  a 
wonder  that  the  skunk  is  not  extermi- 
nated, and  that  he  is  not  even  uncom- 
mon. 

With  an  eye  to  the  main  chance,  the 
fur-trapper  spares  him  when  fur  is  not 
prime,  but  when  the  letter  rt  R  "  has  be- 
come well  established  in  the  months  the 
cruel  trap  gapes  for  him  at  his  outgo- 
ing and  incoming,  at  the  door  of  every 
discovered  burrow,  while  all  the  year 
round  the  farmer,  sportsman,  and  poultry- 
grower  wage  truceless  war  against  him. 

Notwithstanding  this  general  out- 
lawry, when  you  go  forth  of  a  winter 
morning,  after  a  night  of  thaw  or  tem- 
pered chill,  you  see  his  authentic  sig- 
nature on  the  snow,  the  unmistakable 
diagonal  row  of  four  footprints  each,  or 
T54 


THE   SKUNK 


short-spaced  alternate  tracks,  where  he 
has  sallied  out  for  a  change  from  the 
subterranean  darkness  of  his  burrow,  or 
from  his  as  rayless  borrowed  quarters 
beneath  the  barn,  to  the  starlight  or  pale 
gloom  of  midnight  winter  landscape. 

More  often  are  you  made  aware  of  his 
continued  survival  by  another  sense  than 
sight,  when  his  far-reaching  odor  comes 
down  the  vernal  breeze  or  waft  of  sum- 
mer air,  rankly  overbearing  all  the  fra- 
grance of  springing  verdure,  or  perfume 
of  flowers  and  new-mown  hay,  and  you 
well  know  who  has  somewhere  and  some- 
how been  forced  to  take  most  offensively 
the  defensive. 

It  may  be  said  of  him  that  his  ac- 
tions speak  louder  than  his  words.  Yet 
the  voiceless  creature  sometimes  makes 
known  his  presence  by  sound,  and 
frightens  the  belated  farm  boy,  whom 
he  curiously  follows  with  a  mysterious, 
hollow  beating  of  his  feet  upon  the 
ground. 

Patches    of   neatly    inverted   turf    in 

a  grub-infested  pasture  tell  those  who 

know  his  ways  that  the  skunk  has  been 

doing  the  farmer  good  service  here,  and 

'55 


THE   SKUNK 


making  amends  for  poultry  stealing, 
and  you  are  inclined  to  regard  him  with 
more  favor.  But  when  you  come  upon 
the  empty  shells  of  a  raided  partridge 
nest,  your  sportsman's  wrath  is  enkin- 
dled against  him  for  forestalling  your 
gun.  Yet  who  shall  say  that  you  had  a 
better  right  to  the  partridges  than  he  to 
the  eggs  ? 

If  you  are  so  favored,  you  can  but  ad- 
mire the  pretty  sight  of  the  mother  with 
her  cubs  basking  in  a  sunny  nook  or 
leading  them  afield  in  single  file,  a  black 
and  white  procession. 

If  by  another  name  the  rose  would 
smell  as  sweet,  our  old  acquaintance  is 
in  far  better  odor  for  change  of  appella- 
tion from  that  so  suggestive  of  his  rank 
offenses.  What  beauty  of  fair  faces 
would  be  spoiled  with  scorn  by  a  hint  of 
the  vulgar  name  which  in  unadorned 
truth  belongs  to  the  handsome  glossy 
black  muff  and  boa  that  keep  warm  those 
dainty  fingers  and  swan-like  neck.  Yet 
through  the  furrier's  art  and  cunning 
they  undergo  a  magic  transformation 
into  something  to  be  worn  with  pride, 
and  the  every-day  wear  of  the  despised 
156 


THE   SKUNK 


outlaw   becomes   the  prized  apparel   of 
the  fair  lady. 

If  unto  this  humble  night  wanderer  is 
vouchsafed  a  life  beyond  his  brief  earthly 
existence,  imagine  him  in  that  unhunted, 
trapless  paradise  of  uncounted  eggs  and 
callow  nestlings,  grinning  a  wide  derisive 
smile  as  he  beholds  what  fools  we  mor- 
tals be,  so  fooled  by  ourselves  and  one 
another. 

'57 


XXXIII 

A    CAMP-FIRE    RUN   WILD 

SOME  wooden  tent -pins  inclosing  a 
few  square  yards  of  ground  half  covered 
with  a  bed  of  evergreen  twigs,  matted 
but  still  fresh  and  odorous,  a  litter  of 
paper  and  powder-smirched  rags,  empty 
cans  and  boxes,  a  few  sticks  of  fire  wood, 
a  blackened,  primitive  wooden  crane,  with 
its  half-charred  supporting  crotches,  and 
a  smouldering  heap  of  ashes  and  dying 
brands,  mark  the-  place  of  a  camp  re- 
cently deserted. 

Coming  upon  it  by  chance,  one  could 
not  help  a  feeling  of  loneliness,  some- 
thing akin  to  that  inspired  by  the  cold 
hearthstone  of  an  empty  house,  or  the 
crumbling  foundations  of  a  dwelling  long 
since  fallen  to  ruin.  What  days  and 
nights  of  healthful  life  have  been  spent 
here.  What  happy  hours,  never  to  re- 
turn, have  been  passed  here.  What 
jokes  have  flashed  about,  what  merry 


A   CAMP-FIRE   RUN   WILD 

tales  have  been  told,  what  joyous  peals 
of  laughter  rung,  where  now  all  is  si- 
lence. But  no  one  is  there  to  see  it. 
A  crow  peers  down  from  a  treetop  to 
discover  what  pickings  he  may  glean, 
and  a  mink  steals  up  from  the  landing, 
which  bears  the  keelmarks  of  lately  de- 
parted boats,  both  distrustful  of  the  old 
silence  which  the  place  has  so  suddenly 
resumed  ;  and  a  company  of  jays  flit  si- 
lently about,  wondering  that  there  are 
no  intruders  to  assail  with  their  inex- 
haustible vocabulary. 

A  puff  of  wind  rustles  among  the 
treetops,  disturbing  the  balance  of  the 
crow,  then  plunges  downward  and  sets 
aflight  a  scurry  of  dry  leaves,  and  out 
of  the  gray  ashes  uncoils  a  thread  of 
smoke  and  spins  it  off  into  the  haze  of 
leaves  and  shadows.  The  crow  flaps  in 
sudden  alarm,  the  mink  takes  shelter  in 
his  coign  of  vantage  among  the  drift- 
wood, and  the  jays  raise  a  multitudinous 
-clamor  of  discordant  outcry.  The  dry 
leaves  alight  as  if  by  mischievous  guid- 
ance of  evil  purpose '  upon  the  dormant 
embers,  another  puff  of  wind  arouses  a 
flame  that  first  tastes  them,  then  licks 


A   CAMP-FIRE   RUN   WILD 

them  with  an  eager  tongue,  then  with 
the  next  eddying  breath  scatters  its 
crumbs  of  sparks  into  the  verge  of  the 
forest.  These  the  rising  breeze  fans  till 
it  loads  itself  with  a  light  burden  of 
smoke,  shifted  now  here,  now  there,  as 
it  is  trailed  along  the  forest  floor,  now 
climbing  among  the  branches,  then  soar- 
ing skyward. 

Little  flames  creep  along  the  bodies 
of  fallen  trees  and  fluffy  windrows  of 
dry  leaves,  toying  like  panther  kittens 
with  their  assured  prey,  and  then,  grown 
hungry  with  such  dainty  tasting,  the 
flames  upburst  in  a  mad  fury  of  devour- 
ing. They  climb  swifter  than  panthers 
to  treetops,  falling  back  they  gnaw  sav- 
agely at  tree  roots,  till  the  ancient  lords 
of  the  forest  reel  and  topple  and  fall  be- 
fore the  gathering  wind,  and  bear  their 
destroyer  still  onward. 

The  leeward  woods  are  thick  with  a 
blinding,  stifling  smoke,  through  which 
all  the  wild  creatures  of  the  forest  flee 
in  terror,  whither  they  know  not  —  by 
chance  to  safety,  by  equal  chance  perhaps 
to  a  terrible  death  in  the  surging  deluge 
of  fire.  The  billows  of  flame  heave  and 
160  * 


A   CAMP-FIRE   RUN   WILD 

dash  with  a  constant  insatiate  roar,  toss- 
ing ever  onward  a  red  foam  of  sparks  and 
casting  a  jetsam  of  lurid  brands  upon 
the  ever  -  retreating  strand  that  is  but 
touched  with  the  wash  of  enkindling, 
when  it  is  overrun  by  the  sea  of  fire. 

The  ice-cold  springs  grow  hot  in  its 
fierce  overwhelming  wave,  the  purling 
rills  hiss  and  boil  and  shrink  before  it, 
then  vanish  from  their  seared  beds.  All 
the  living  greenness  of  the  forest  is  ut- 
terly consumed  —  great  trees  that  have 
stood  like  towers,  defying  the  centu- 
ries, with  the  ephemeral  verdure  of  the 
woodland  undergrowth;  and  to  mark 
the  place  of  all  this  recent  majesty  and 
beauty,  there  is  but  smouldering  ruin 
and  black  and  ashen  waste.  Little 
farms  but  lately  uncovered  to  the  sun 
out  of  the  wilderness,  cosy  homesteads 
but  newly  builded,  are  swept  away,  and 
with  them  cherished  hopes  and  perhaps 
precious  lives.  What  irreparable  devas- 
tation has  been  wrought  by  the  camp- 
fire  run  wild ! 

Meanwhile  the  careless  begetters  of 
this  havoc  are  making  their  leisurely 
way  toward  the  outer  world  of  civiliza- 
161 


A  CAMP-FIRE   RUN   WILD 

tion,  serenely  noting  that  the  woods  are 
on  fire,  and  complacently  congratulating 
themselves  that  the  disaster  did  not  come 
to  spoil  their  outing ;  never  once  think- 
ing that  by  a  slight  exercise  of  that 
care  which  all  men  owe  the  world,  this 
calamity,  which  a  century  cannot  repair, 
might  have  been  avoided. 
162 


XXXIV 

THE    DEAD    CAMP-FIRE 

A  HEAP  of  ashes,  a  few  half-burned 
brands,  a  blackened  pair  of  crotched 
sticks  that  mark  the  place  of  the  once 
glowing  heart  of  the  camp,  furnish  food 
for  the  imagination  to  feed  upon  or  give 
the  memory  an  elusive  taste  of  departed 
pleasures. 

If  you  were  one  of  those  who  saw 
its  living  flame  and  felt  its  warmth,  the 
pleasant  hours  passed  here  come  back 
with  that  touch  of  sadness  which  accom- 
panies the  memory  of  all  departed  pleas- 
ures and  yet  makes  it  not  unwelcome. 
What  was  unpleasant,  even  what  was 
almost  unendurable,  has  nearly  faded  out 
of  remembrance  or  is  recalled  with  a 
laugh. 

It  was  ten  years  ago,  and  the  winds 

and  fallen  leaves  of  as  many  autumns 

have   scattered   and    covered   the    gray 

heap.     If  it  was  only  last  year,  you  fancy 

163 


THE   DEAD   CAMP-FIRE 


that  the  smell  of  fire  still  lingers  in  the 
brands.  How  vividly  return  to  you  the 
anxious  deliberation  with  which  the  site 
was  chosen  with  a  view  to  all  attainable 
comfort  and  convenience,  and  the  final 
satisfaction  that  followed  the  establish- 
ment of  this  short-lived  home,  short-lived 
but  yet  so  much  a  home  during  its  exist- 
ence. Nothing  contributed  so  much  to 
make  it  one  as  the  camp-fire.  How  in- 
tently you  watched  its  first  building  and 
lighting,  how  labored  for  its  maintenance 
with  awkwardly-wielded  axe,  how  you  in- 
haled the  odors  of  its  cookery  and  es- 
sayed long-planned  culinary  experiments 
with  extemporized  implements,  over  its 
beds  of  coals,  and  how  you  felt  the  con- 
sequent exaltation  of  triumph  or  morti- 
fication of  failure. 

All  these  come  back  to  you,  and  the 
relighting  of  the  fire  in  the  sleepy  dawn, 
the  strange  mingling  of  white  sunlight 
and  yellow  firelight  when  the  sun  shot 
its  first  level  rays  athwart  the  camp,  the 
bustle  of  departure  for  the  day's  sport, 
the  pleasant  loneliness  of  camp-keeping 
with  only  the  silent  woods,  the  crackling 
fire,  and  your  thoughts  for  company  ;  the 
164 


THE   DEAD   CAMP-FIRE 


incoming  at  nightfall  and  the  rekindling 
of  the  fire,  when  the  rosy  bud  of  sleeping 
embers  suddenly  expanded  into  a  great 
blossom  of  light  whose  petals  quivered 
and  faded  and  brightened  among  the  en- 
circling shadows  of  the  woods.  You 
laugh  again  at  the  jokes  that  ran  around 
that  merry  circle  and  wonder  again  and 
again  at  the  ingenuity  with  which  small 
performances  were  magnified  into  great 
exploits,  little  haps  into  strange  adven- 
ture, and  with  which  bad  shots  and  poor 
catches  were  excused. 

At  last  came  breaking  camp,  the  deso- 
lation of  dismantling  and  leave-taking. 
How  many  of  you  will  ever  meet  again  ? 
How  many  of  those  merry  voices  are 
stilled  forever,  from  how  many  of  those 
happy  faces  has  the  light  of  life  faded  ? 

Who  lighted  this  camp-fire?  Years 
have  passed  since  it  illumined  the  nightly 
gloom  of  the  woods,  for  moss  and  lichens 
are  creeping  over  the  charred  back-log. 
A  green  film  is  spread  over  the  ashes, 
and  thrifty  sprouts  are  springing  up 
through  them. 

You  know  that  the  campers  were  tent- 
dwellers,  for  there  stand  the  rows  of 
165 


THE   DEAD    CAMP-FIRE 


rotten  tent  pins  inclosing  a  rusty  heap  of 
mould  that  once  was  a  fragrant  couch  of 
evergreens  inviting  tired  men  to  rest,  — 
or  you  know  they  spent  their  nights  in  a 
shanty,  for  there  are  the  crumbling  walls, 
the  fallen-in  roof  of  bark  which  never 
again  will  echo  song  or  jest. 

This  pile  of  fish  -  bones  attests  that 
they  were  anglers,  and  skillful  or  lucky 
ones,  for  the  pile  is  large.  If  you  are 
an  ichthyologist,  you  can  learn  by  these 
vestiges  of  their  sport  whether  they  sat- 
isfied the  desire  of  soul  and  stomach  with 
the  baser  or  the  nobler  fishes  ;  perhaps 
a  rotting  pole,  breaking  with  its  own 
.weight,  may  decide  whether  they  fished 
with  worm  or  fly  ;  but  whether  you  rele- 
gate them  to  the  class  of  scientific  or 
unscientific  anglers,  you  doubt  not  they 
enjoyed  their  sport  as  much  in  one  way 
as  in  the  other. 

You  know  that  they  were  riflemen,  for 
there  is  the  record  of  their  shots  in  the 
healing  bullet  wounds  on  the  trunk  of  a 
great  beech.  For  a  moment  you  may 
fancy  that  the  woods  still  echo  the  laugh- 
ter that  greeted  the  shot  that  just  raked 
1 66 


THE   DEAD   CAMP-FIRE 


the  side  of  the  tree ;  but  it  is  only  the 
cackle  of  a  yellow-hammer. 

There  is  nothing  to  tell  you  who  they 
were,  whence  they  came,  or  whither  they 
went ;  but  they  were  campers,  lovers  of 
the  great  outdoor  world,  and  so  akin  to 
you,  and  you  bid  them  hail  and  farewell 
without  a  meeting. 

167 


XXXV 

OCTOBER    DAYS 

FIELDS  as  green  as  when  the  summer 
birds  caroled  above  them,  woods  more 
gorgeous  with  innumerable  hues  and 
tints  of  ripening  leaves  than  a  blooming 
parterre,  are  spread  beneath  the  azure 
sky,  whose  deepest  color  is  reflected 
with  intenser  blue  in  lake  and  stream. 
In  them  against  this  color  are  set  the 
scarlet  and  gold  of  every  tree  upon  their 
brinks,  the  painted  hills,  the  clear-cut 
mountain  peaks,  all  downward  pointing 
to  the  depths  of  this  nether  sky. 

Overhead,  thistledown  and  the  silken 
balloon  of  the  milkweed  float  on  their 
zephyr  -  wafted  course,  silver  motes 
against  the  blue ;  and  above  them  are 
the  black  cohorts  of  crows  in  their  strag- 
gling retreat  to  softer  climes.  Now  the 
dark  column  moves  steadily  onward,  now 
veers  in  confusion  from  some,  suspected 
or  discovered  danger,  or  pauses  to  assail 
1 68 


OCTOBER  DAYS 


with  a  harsh  clangor  some  sworn  enemy 
of  the  sable  brotherhood.  Their  gay- 
clad  smaller  cousins,  the  jays,  are  for  the 
most  part  silently  industrious  among  the 
gold  and  bronze  of  the  beeches,  flitting 
to  and  fro  with  flashes  of  blue  as  they 
gather  mast,  but  now  and  then  finding 
time  to  scold  an  intruder  with  an  endless 
variety  of  discordant  outcry. 

How  sharp  the  dark  shadows  are  cut 
against  the  sunlit  fields,  and  in  their 
gloom  how  brightly  shine  the  first  fallen 
leaves  and  the  starry  bloom  of  the  asters. 
In  cloudy  days  and  even  when  rain  is 
falling  the  depths  of  the  woods  are  not 
dark,  for  the  bright  foliage  seems  to 
give  forth  light  and  casts  no  shadows 
beneath  the  lowering  sky. 

The  scarlet  maples  burn,  the  golden 
leaves  of  poplar  and  birch  shine  through 
the  misty  veil,  and  the  deep  purple  of 
the  ash  glows  as  if  it  held  a  smoulder- 
ing fire  that  the  first  breeze  might  fan 
into  a  flame,  and  through  all  this  lumi- 
nous leafage  one  may  trace  branch  and 
twig  as  a  wick  in  a  candle  flame.  Only 
the  evergreens  are  dark  as  when  they 
bear  their  steadfast  green  in  the  des- 
169 


OCTOBER  DAYS 


olation  of  winter,  and  only  they  brood 
shadows. 

In  such  weather  the  woodland  air  is 
laden  with  the  light  burden  of  odor, 
the  faintly  pungent  aroma  of  the  ripened 
leaves,  more  subtle  than  the  scent  of 
pine  or  fir,  yet  as  apparent  to  the  nos- 
trils, as  delightful  and  more  rare,  for  in 
the  round  of  the  year  its  days  are  few, 
while  'in  summer  sunshine  and  winter 
wind,  in  springtime  shower  and  autumnal 
frost,  pine,  spruce,  balsam,  hemlock,  and 
cedar  distill  their  perfume  and  lavish  it 
on  the  breeze  or  gale  of  every  season. 

Out  of  the  marshes,  now  changing 
their  universal  green  to  brown  and 
bronze  and  gold,  floats  a  finer  odor  than 
their  common  reek  of  ooze  and  sodden 
weeds  —  a*  spicy  tang  of  frost-ripened 
flags  and  the  fainter  breath  of  the  land- 
ward border  of  ferns  ;  and  with  these 
also  is  mingled  the  subtle  pungency  of 
the  woodlands,  where  the  pepperidge  is 
burning  out  in  a  blaze  of  scarlet,  and  the 
yellow  flame  of  the  poplars  flickers  in  the 
lightest  breeze. 

The  air  is  of  a  temper  neither  too  hot 
nor  too  cold,  and  in  what  is  now  rather 
170 


OCTOBER  DAYS 


the  good  gay  wood  than  green  wood, 
there  are  no  longer  pestering  insects  to 
worry  the  flesh  and  trouble  the  spirit. 
The  flies  bask  in  half  torpid  indolence, 
the  tormenting  whine  of  the  mosquito  is 
heard  no  more.  Of  insect  life  one  hears 
little  but  the  mellow  drone  of  the  bum- 
blebee, the  noontide  chirp  of  the  cricket, 
and  the  husky  rustle  of  the  dragonfly's 
gauzy  wing. 

Unwise  are  the  tent-dwellers  who  have 
folded  their  canvas  and  departed  to  the 
shelter  of  more  stable  roof-trees,  for  these 
are  days  that  should  be  made  the  most 
of,  days  that  have  brought  the  perfected 
ripeness  of  the  year  and  display  it  in  the 
fullness  of  its  glory. 
171 


XXXVI 

A    COMMON.  EXPERIENCE 

THE  keenest  of  the  sportsman's  dis- 
appointments is  not  a  blank  day,  nor  a 
series  of  misses,  unaccountable  or  too 
well  accountable  to  a  blundering  hand  or 
unsteady  nerves,  nor  adverse  weather, 
nor  gun  or  tackle  broken  in  the  midst  of 
sport,  nor  perversity  of  dogs,  nor  uncon- 
geniality  of  comradeship,  nor  yet  even 
the  sudden  cold  or  the  spell  of  rheuma- 
tism that  prevents  his  taking  the  field 
on  the  allotted  morning. 

All  these  may  be  but  for  a  day.  To- 
morrow may  bring  game  again  to  haunts 
now  untenanted,  restore  cunning  to  the 
awkward  hand,  steady  the  nerves,  mend 
the  broken  implement,  make  the  dogs 
obedient  and  bring  pleasanter  comrades 
or  the  comfortable  lonesomeness  of  one's 
own  companionship,  and  to-morrow  or 
next  day  or  next  week  the  cold  and 
172 


A   COMMON   EXPERIENCE 


rheumatic  twinges  may  have  passed  into 
the  realm  of  bygone  ills. 

For  a  year,  perhaps  for  many  years, 
he  has  yearned  for  a  sight  of  some  be- 
loved haunt,  endeared  to  him  by  old 
and  cherished  associations.  He  fancies 
that  once  more  among  the  scenes  of 
his  youthful  exploits  there  will  return  to 
him  something  of  the  boyish  ardor,  ex- 
uberance of  spirit  and  perfect  freedom 
from  care  that  made  the  enjoyment  of 
those  happy  hours  so  complete.  He 
imagines  that  a  draught  from  the  old 
spring  that  bubbles  up  in  the  shadow  of 
the  beeches  or  from  the  moss-brimmed 
basin  of  the  trout  brook  will  rejuvenate 
him,  at  least  for  the  moment  while  its 
coolness  lingers  on  his  palate,  as  if  he 
quaffed  Ponce  de  Leon's  undiscovered 
fountain.  He  doubts  not  that  in  the 
breath  of  the  old  woods  he  shall  once 
more  catch  that  faint,  indescribable,  but 
unforgotten  aroma,  that  subtle  savor  of 
wildness,  that  has  so  long  eluded  him, 
sometimes  tantalizing  his  nostrils  with  a 
touch,  but  never  quite  inhaled  since  its 
pungent  elixir  made  the  young  blood 
tingle  in  his  veins. 


A    COMMON   EXPERIENCE 


He  has  almost  come  to  his  own  again, 
his  long -lost  possession  in  the  sunny 
realm  of  youth.  It  lies  just  beyond  the 
hill  before  him,  from  whose  crest  he 
shall  see  the  nut-tree  where  he  shot  his 
first  squirrel,  the  southing  slope  where 
the  beeches  hide  the  spring,  where  he 
astonished  himself  with  the  glory  of 
killing  his  first  grouse,  and  he  shall  see 
the  glint  of  the  brook  flashing  down  the 
evergreen  dell  and  creeping  among  the 
alder  copses. 

He  does  not  expect  to  find  so  many 
squirrels  or  grouse  or  trout  now  as  thirty 
years  ago,  when  a  double  gun  was  a  won- 
der, and  its  possession  the  unrealized 
dream  of  himself  and  his  comrades,  and 
none  of  them  had  ever  seen  jointed  rod 
or  artificial  fly,  and  dynamite  was  un- 
invented.  Yet  all  the  game  and  fish 
cannot  have  been  driven  from  nor  ex- 
terminated in  haunts  so  congenial  and 
fostering  as  these,  by  the  modern  horde 
of  gunners  and  anglers  and  by  the  lat- 
ter-day devices  of  destruction,  and  he 
doubts  not  that  he  shall  find  enough  to 
satisfy  the  tempered  ardor  of  the  gray- 
beard. 

'74 


A   COMMON   EXPERIENCE 


Indeed,  it  is  for  something  better  than 
mere  shooting  or  fishing  that  he  has 
come  so  far.  One  squirrel,  flicking  the 
leaves  with  his  downfall,  one  grouse 
plunging  to  earth  midway  in  his  thun- 
derous flight,  one  trout  caught  as  he  can 
catch  him,  now,  will  appease  his  moder- 
ate craving  for  sport,  and  best  and  most 
desired  of  all,  make  him,  for  the  nonce,  a 
boy  again.  He  anticipates  with  quicker 
heartbeat  the  thrill  of  surprised  delight 
that  choked  him  with  its  fullness  when 
he  achieved  his  first  triumph. 

At  last  the  hilltop  is  gained,  but  what 
unfamiliar  scene  is  this  which  has  taken 
the  place  of  that  so  cherished  in  his 
memory  and  so  longed  for  ?  Can  that 
naked  hillside  slanting  toward  him  from 
the  further  rim  of  the  valley,  forlorn  in 
the  desolation  of  recent  clearing,  be  the 
wooded  slope  of  the  other  day  ?  Can 
the  poor,  unpicturesque  thread  of  water 
that  crawls  in  feeble  attenuation  between 
its  shorn,  unsightly  banks  be  the  wild, 
free  brook  whose  voice  was  a  continual 
song,  every  rod  of  whose  amber  and  silver 
course  was  a  picture  ?  Even  its  fringes  of 
willow  and  alders,  useful  for  their  shade 


A   COMMON   EXPERIENCE 


and  cover  when  alive,  but  cut  down 
worthless  even  for  fuel,  have  been  swept 
from  its  margin  by  the  ruthless  besom  of 
destruction,  as  if  everything  that  could 
beautify  the  landscape  must  be  blotted 
out  to  fulfill  the  mission  of  the  spoiler. 

Near  it,  and  sucking  in  frequent 
draughts  from  the  faint  stream,  is  a 
thirsty  and  hungry  little  sawmill,  the 
most  obtrusive  and  most  ignoble  feat- 
ure of  the  landscape,  whose  beauty  its 
remorseless  fangs  have  gnawed  away. 
Every  foot  of  the  brook  below  it  is  foul 
with  its  castings,  and  the  fragments  of 
its  continual  greedy  feasting  are  thickly 
strewn  far  and  near.  Yet  it  calls  to  the 
impoverished  hills  for  more  victims  ;  its 
shriek  arouses  discordant  echoes  where 
once  resounded  the  music  of  the  brook, 
the  song  of  birds,  the  grouse's  drum  call, 
and  the  mellow  note  of  the  hound. 

Though  sick  at  heart  with  the  doleful 
scene,  the  returned  exile  descends  to  his 
harried  domain  hoping  that  he  may  yet 
find  some  vestige  of  its  former  wealth, 
but  only  more  disappointments  reward 
his  quest.  Not  a  trout  flashes  through 
the  shrunken  pools.  The  once  limpid 
176 


A  COMMON   EXPERIENCE 


spring  is  a  quagmire  among  rotting 
stumps.  The  rough  nakedness  of  the 
hillside  is  clad  only  with  thistles  and 
fireweed,  with  here  and  there  a  patch  of 
blanched  dead  leaves,  dross  of  the  old  gold 
of  the  beech's  ancient  autumnal  glory. 

Of  all  he  hoped  for  nothing  is  realized, 
and  he  finds  only  woful  change,  irrep- 
arable loss.  His  heart  heavy  with  sor- 
row and  bursting  with  impotent  wrath 
against  the  ruthless  spoiler,  he  turns  his 
back  forever  on  the  desolated  scene  of 
his  boyhood's  sports. 

Alas  !     That  one  should  ever  attempt 
to  retouch  the  time-faded  but  beautiful 
pictures  that  the  memory  holds. 
177 


XXXVII 

THE    RED    SQUIRREL 

A  HAWK,  flashing  the  old  gold  of  his 
pinions  in  the  face  of  the  sun,  flings 
down  a  shrill,  husky  cry  of  intense 
scorn ;  a  jay  scolds  like  a  shrew ;  from 
his  safe  isolation  in  the  midwater,  a  loon 
taunts  you  and  the  awakening  winds 
with  his  wild  laughter ;  there  is  a  jeer  in 
the  chuckling  diminuendo  of  the  wood- 
chuck's  whistle,  a  taunt  in  the  fox's 
gasping  bark  as  he  scurries  unseen  be- 
hind the  veil  of  night ;  and  a  scoff  on 
hunters  and  hounds  and  cornfield  owners 
is  flung  out  through  the  gloaming  in 
the  raccoon's  quavering  cry.  But  of  all 
the  wild  world's  inhabitants,  feathered  or 
furred,  none  outdo  the  saucy  red  squirrel 
in  taunts,  gibes,  and  mockery  of  their 
common  enemy. 

He  is  inspired  with  derision  that  is 
expressed  in  every  tone  and  gesture. 
His  agile  form  is  vibrant -with  it  when 
178 


THE   RED   SQUIRREL 


he  flattens  himself  against  a  tree-trunk, 
toes  and  tail  quivering  with  intensity  of 
ridicule  as  fully  expressed  in  every  mo- 
tion as  in  his  nasal  snicker  and  throaty 
chuckle  or  in  the  chattering  jeer  that 
he  pours  down  when  he  has  attained  a 
midway  or  topmost  bough  and  cocks  his 
tail  with  a  saucy  curve  above  his  arched 
back. 

When  he  persistently  retires  within 
his  wooden  tower,  he  still  peers  out 
saucily  from  his  lofty  portal,  and  if  he 
disappears  you  may  yet  hear  the  smoth- 
ered chuckle  wherewith  he  continues  to 
tickle  his  ribs.  When  in  a  less  scornful 
mood,  he  is  at  least  supremely  indiffer- 
ent, deigning  to  regard  you  with  but  the 
corner  of  an  eye,  while  he  rasps  a  nut 
or  chips  a  cone. 

Ordinarily  you  must  be  philosophical 
or  godly  to  suffer  gibes  with  equanim- 
ity, but  you  need  be  neither  to  endure 
the  scoffs  of  this  buffoon  of  the  woods 
•and  waysides.  They  only  amuse  you 
as  they  do  him,  and  you  could  forgive 
these  tricks  tenfold  multiplied  if  he  had 
no  worse,  and  love  him  if  he  were  but 
half  as  good  as  he  is  beautiful. 
179 


THE   RED   SQUIRREL 


He  exasperates  when  he  cuts  off  your 
half -grown  apples  and  pears  in  sheer 
wantonness,  injuring  you  and  profiting 
himself  only  in  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
and  hearing  them  fall.  But  you  are 
heated  with  a  hotter  wrath  when  he  re- 
veals his  chief  wickedness,  and  you  catch 
sight  of  him  stealthily  skulking  along 
the  leafy  by-paths  of  the  branches,  si- 
lently intent  on  evil  deeds  and  plotting 
the  murder  of  callow  innocents.  Quite 
noiseless  now,  himself,  his  whereabouts 
are  only  indicated  by  the  distressful  out- 
cry of  the  persecuted  and  sympathizing 
birds  and  the  fluttering  swoops  of  their 
futile  attacks  upon  the  marauder.  Then 
when  you  see  him  gliding  away,  swift 
and  silent  as  a  shadow,  bearing  a  half- 
naked  fledgeling  in  his  jaws,  if  this  is 
the  first  revelation  of  such  wickedness, 
you  are  as  painfully  surprised  as  if  you 
had  discovered  a  little  child  in  some 
wanton  act  of  cruelty. 

It  seems  quite  out  of  all  fitness  of  na- 
ture that  this  merry  fellow  should  turn 
murderer,  that  this  dainty  connoisseur 
of  choice  nuts  and  tender  buds,  and 
earliest  discoverer  and  taster  of  the 
180 


THE   RED   SQUIRREL 


maple's  sweetness,  should  become  so 
grossly  carnivorous  and  savagely  blood- 
thirsty. But  anon  be  will  cajole  you 
with  pretty  ways  into  forgetfulness  and 
forgiveness  of  his  crimes.  You  find 
yourself  offering,  in  extenuation  of  his 
sins,  confession  of  your  own  offenses. 
Have  not  you,  too,  wrought  havoc  among 
harmless  broods  and  brought  sorrow  to 
feathered  mothers  and  woodland  homes  ? 
Is  he  worse  than  you,  or  are  you  better 
than  he  ?  Against  his  sins  you  set  his 
beauty  and  tricksy  manners,  and  for  them 
would  not  banish  him  out  of  the  world 
nor  miss  the  incomparable  touch  of  wild 
life  that  his  presence  gives  it. 
181 


XXXVIII 

THE    RUFFED    GROUSE 

THE  woods  in  the  older  parts  of  our 
country  possess  scarcely  a  trait  of  the 
primeval  forest.  The  oldest  trees  have 
a  comparatively  youthful  appearance, 
and  are  pygmies  in  girth  beside  the  de- 
caying stumps  of  their  giant  ancestors. 
They  are  not  so  shagged  with  moss  nor 
so  scaled  with  lichens.  The  forest  floor 
has  lost  its  ancient  carpet  of  ankle-deep 
moss  and  the  intricate  maze  of  fallen 
trees  in  every  stage  of  decay,  and  looks 
clean  -  swept  and  bare.  The  tangle  of 
undergrowth  is  gone,  many  of  the  species 
which  composed  it  having  quite  disap- 
peared, as  have  many  of  the  animals 
that  flourished  in  the  perennial  shade  of 
the  old  woods. 

If  in  their  season  one  sees  and  hears 

more  birds  among  their  lower  interlaced 

branches,  he  is  not  likely  to  catch  sight 

or  sound  of  many  of  the  denizens  of  the 

182 


THE   RUFFED   GROUSE 


old  wilderness.  No  startled  deer  bounds 
away  before  him,  nor  bear  shuffles  awk- 
wardly from  his  feast  of  mast  at  one's 
approach,  nor  does  one's  flesh  creep  at 
the  howl  of  the  gathering  wolves  or  the 
panther's  scream  or  the  rustle  of  his 
stealthy  footsteps. 

But  as  you  saunter  on  your  devious 
way  you  may  hear  a  rustle  of  quick  feet 
in  the  dry  leaves  and  a  sharp,  insistent 
cry,  a  succession  of  short,  high-pitched 
clucks  running  into  and  again  out  of 
a  querulous  "  ker-r-r-r"  all  expressing 
warning  as  much  as  alarm.  Your  ears 
guide  your  eyes  to  the  exact  point  from 
which  the  sounds  apparently  come,  but 
if  these  are  not  keen  and  well  trained 
they  fail  to  detach  any  animate  form 
from  the  inanimate  dun  and  gray  of 
dead  leaves  and  underbrush. 

With  startling  suddenness  out  of  the 
monotony  of  lifeless  color  in  an  eddy- 
ing flurry  of  dead  leaves,  fanned  to  er- 
ratic flight  by  his  wing-beats,  the  ruffed 
grouse  bursts  into  view,  in  full  flight 
with  the  first  strokes  of  his  thundering 
pinions,  and  you  have  a  brief  vision  of 
untamed  nature  as  it  was  in  the  old  days. 
183 


THE   RUFFED   GROUSE 


On  either  side  of  the  vanishing  brown 
nebula  the  ancient  mossed  and  lichened 
trunks  rear  themselves  again,  above  it 
their  lofty  ramage  veils  the  sky,  beneath 
it  lie  the  deep,  noiseless  cushion  of  moss, 
the  shrubs  and  plants  that  the  old  wood 
rangers  knew  and  the  moose  browsed  on, 
and  the  tangled  trunks  of  fallen  trees. 
You  almost  fancy  that  you  hear  the  long- 
ago  silenced  voices  of  the  woods,  so  viv- 
idly does  this  wild  spirit  for  an  instant 
conjure  up  a  vision  of  the  old  wild  world 
whereof  he  is  a  survival. 

Acquaintance  with  civilized  man  has 
not  tamed  him,  but  has  made  him  the 
wilder.  He  deigns  to  feed  upon  apple- 
tree  buds  and  buckwheat  and  woodside 
clover,  not  as  a  gift,  but  a  begrudged 
compensation  for  what  you  have  taken 
from  him,  and  gives  you  therefor  not 
even  the  thanks  of  familiarity ;  and  not- 
withstanding his  acquaintance  with  gen- 
erations of  your  race  he  will  not  surfer 
you  to  come  so  near  to  him  as  he  would 
your  grandfather. 

If,  when  the  leaves  are  falling,  you 
find  him  in  your  barnyard,  garden,  or 
out-house,  or  on  the  porch,  do  not  think 
184 


THE   RUFFED   GROUSE 


he  has  any  intention  of  associating  with 
you  or  your  plebeian  poultry.  You  can 
only  wonder  where  he  found  refuge  from 
the  painted  shower  when  all  his  world 
was  wooded.  If  he  invites  your  attend- 
ance at  his  drum  solo,  it  is  only  to  fool 
you  with  the  sight  of  an  empty  stage, 
for  you  must  be  as  stealthy  and  keen- 
eyed  as  a  lynx  to  see  his  proud  display 
of  distended  ruff  and  wide  spread  of 
barred  tail  and  accelerated  beat  of  wings 
that  mimic  thunder,  or  see  even  the 
leafy  curtain  of  his  stage  flutter  in  the 
wind  of  his  swift  exit. 

How  the  definite  recognition  of  his 
motionless  form  evades  you,  so  perfectly 
are  his  colors  merged  into  those  of  his 
environment,  whether  it  be  in  the  flush 
greenness  of  summer,  the  painted  hues 
of  autumn  or  its  later  faded  dun  and 
gray,  or  in  the  whiteness  of  winter. 
Among  one  or  the  other  he  is  but  a  clot 
of  dead  leaves,  a  knot  upon  a  branch, 
the  gray  stump  of  a  sapling  protruding 
from  the  snow,  or,  covered  deep  in  the 
unmarked  whiteness,  he  bursts  from  it 
like  a  mine  exploded  at  your  feet,  leav- 
ing you  agape  till  he  has  vanished  from 
'85 


THE   RUFFED   GROUSE 


your  sight  and  your  ears  have  caught  the 
last  flick  of  his  wings  against  the  dry 
branches. 

In  May,  his  mate  sits  on  her  nest,  in- 
distinguishable among  the  brown  leaves 
and  gray  branches  about  her.  Later, 
when  surprised  with  her  brood,  how  con- 
spicuous she  makes  herself,  fluttering 
and  staggering  along  the  ground,  while 
her  callow  chicks,  old  in  cunning  though 
so  lately  their  eyes  first  beheld  the  world, 
scatter  in  every  direction  like  a  shattered 
globule  of  quicksilver  and  magically  dis- 
appear where  there  is  no  apparent  hid- 
ing-place. Did  they  con  the  first  lesson 
of  safety  in  the  dark  chamber  of  the  egg, 
or  absorb  it  with  the  warmth  of  the 
brooding  breast  that  gave  them  life  ? 

Listen,  and  out  of  the  silence  which 
follows  the  noisy  dispersion  of  the  family 
hear  the  low  sibilant  voice  of  the  mother 
calling  her  children  to  her  or  cautioning 
them  to  continued  hiding.  Perhaps  you 
may  see  her,  alertly  skulking  among  the 
underbrush,  still  uttering  that  tender, 
persuasive  cry,  so  faint  that  the  chirp  of 
a  cricket  might  overbear  it.  Scatter  her 
brood  when  the  members  are  half  grown 
186 


THE   RUFFED   GROUSE 


and  almost  as  strong  of  wing  as  herself, 
and  you  presently  hear  her  softly  calling 
them  and  assuring  them  of  her  continued 
care. 

Among  many  things  that  mark  the 
changing  season,  is  the  dispersion  of 
this  wildwood  family.  Each  member  is 
now  shifting  for  itself  in  matters  of  seek- 
ing food,  safety,  pleasure,  and  comfort. 
You  will  come  upon  one  in  the  ferny 
undergrowth  of  the  lowland  woods  where 
he  is  consorting  with  woodcock,  frighten 
another  from  his  feast  on  the  fence- 
side  elderberries,  scare  one  in  the  thick 
shadows  of  the  evergreens,  another  on 
the  sparsely  wooded  steep  of  a  rocky 
hillside,  and  later  hear  the  drum-beat  of 
a  young  cock  that  the  soft  Indian  sum- 
mer has  fooled  into  springtime  love-mak- 
ing, and  each  has  the  alertness  that  com- 
plete self-dependence  has  enforced. 

Still,  you  may  come  upon  them  gath- 
ered in  social  groups,  yet  each  going  his 
own  way  when  flushed.  Upon  rare  oc- 
casions you  may  surprise  a  grand  con- 
vention of  all  the  grouse  of  the  region 
congregated  on  the  sunny  lee  of  a  hill- 
side. It  is  a  sight  and  sound  to  remem- 
187 


THE   RUFFED   GROUSE 


her  long,  though  for  the  moment  you 
forget  the  gun  in  your  hands,  when  by 
ones,  twos,  and  dozens  the  dusky  forms 
burst  away  up  wind,  down  wind,  across 
wind,  signalling  their  departure  with  vol- 
leys of  intermittent  and  continuous  thun- 
der. Not  many  times  in  your  life  will 
you  see  this,  yet,  if  but  once,  you  will  be 
thankful  that  you  have  not  outlived  all 
the  old  world's  wildness. 
1 88 


XXXIX 

TWO    SHOTS 

A  BOY  of  fourteen,  alert,  but  too  full 
of  life  to  move  slowly  and  cautiously,  is 
walking  along  an  old  road  in  the  woods, 
a  road  that  winds  here  and  there  with 
meanderings  that  now  seem  vagrant 
and  purposeless  but  once  led  to  the  va- 
rious piles  of  cordwood  and  logs  for 
whose  harvesting  it  was  hewn.  Goodly 
trees  have  since  grown  up  from  sap- 
lings that  the  judicious  axe  then  scorned. 
Beeches,  whose  flat  branches  are  shelves 
of  old  gold ;  poplars,  turned  to  towers  of 
brighter  metal  by  the  same  alchemy  of 
autumn  ;  and  hemlocks,  pyramids  of  un- 
changing green,  shadow  the  leaf-strewn 
forest  floor  and  its  inconspicuous  dotting 
of  gray  and  russet  stumps.  How  happy 
the  boy  is  in  the  freedom  of  the  woods  ; 
proud  to  carry  his  first  own  gun,  as  he 
treads  gingerly  but  somewhat  noisily 
over  the  fallen  leaves  and  dry  twigs, 


TWO   SHOTS 


scanning  with  quick  glances  the  thickets, 
imagining  himself  the  last  Mohican  on 
the  warpath,  or  Leather-Stocking  scout- 
ing in  the  primeval  wilderness. 

Under  his  breath  he  tells  the  confid- 
ing chickadees  and  woodpeckers  what 
undreamed-of  danger  they  would  be  in 
from  such  a  brave,  were  he  not  in  pur- 
suit of  nobler  game.  Then  he  hears 
a  sudden  rustle  of  the  dry  leaves,  the 
quit!  quit!  of  a  partridge,  catches  a 
glimpse  of  a  rapidly  running  brown  ob- 
ject, which  on  the  instant  is  launched  into 
a  flashing  thunderous  flight.  Impelled 
by  the  instinct  of  the  born  sportsman, 
he  throws  the  gun  to  his  shoulder,  and 
scarcely  with  aim,  but  in  the  direction  of 
the  sound,  pulls  trigger  and  fires. 

On  the  instant  he  is  ashamed  of  his 
impulsive  haste,  which  fooled  him  into 
wasting  a  precious  charge  on  the  inani- 
mate evergreen  twigs  and  sere  leaves 
that  come  dropping  and  floating  down 
to  his  shot,  and  is  thankful  that  he  is 
the  only  witness  of  his  own  foolishness. 

But  what  is  that  ?  Above  the  patter 
and  rustle  of  falling  twigs  and  leaves 
conies  a  dull  thud,  followed  by  the  rapid 
190 


TWO   SHOTS 


beat  of  wings  upon  the  leaf-strewn  earth. 
With  heart  beating  as  fast  he  runs  toward 
the  sound,  afraid  to  believe  his  senses, 
when  he  sees  a  noble  grouse  fluttering 
out  feebly  his  last  gasp.  He  cannot  be 
sure  that  it  is  not  all  a  dream  that  may 
vanish  in  a  breath,  till  he  has  the  bird 
safe  in  his  hand,  and  then  he  is  faint 
with  joy.  Was  there  ever  such  a  shot  ? 
Would  that  all  the  world  were  here  to 
see,  for  who  can  believe  it  just  for  the 
telling  ?  There  never  will  be  another 
such  a  bird,  nor  such  a  shot,  for  him. 
He  fires  a  dozen  ineffectual  ones  at  fair 
marks  that  day,  but  the  glory  of  that 
one  shot  would  atone  for  twice  as  many 
misses,  and  he  need  not  tell  of  them, 
only  of  this,  whereof  he  bears  actual 
proof,  though  he  himself  can  hardly  ac- 
cept it,  till  again  and  again  he  tests  it  by 
admiring  look  and  touch. 

Years  after  the  killing  of  grouse  on 
the  wing  has  become  a  matter-of-course 
occurrence  in  his  days  of  upland  shoot- 
ing, the  memory  of  this  stands  clearest 
and  best.  Sixty  years  later  the  old 
wood  road  winds  through  the  same 
scene,  by  some  marvel  of  kindliness  or 
191 


TWO   SHOTS 


oversight,  untouched  by  the  devastating 
axe,  unchanged  but  by  the  forest  growth 
of  half  a  century  and  its  seemly  and 
decorous  decay.  A  thicker  screen  of 
undergrowth  borders  the  more  faintly 
traced  way.  The  golden-brown  shelves 
of  the  beech  branches  sweep  more 
broadly  above  it,  the  spires  of  the  ever- 
greens are  nearer  the  sky,  and  the  yel- 
low towers  of  the  poplars  are  builded 
higher,  but  they  are  the  same  trees  and 
beneath  them  may  yet  be  seen  the  gray 
stumps  and  trunks  mouldered  to  russet 
lines,  of  their  ancient  brethren  who  fell 
when  these  were  saplings. 

The  gray  -  bearded  man  who  comes 
along  the  old  wood  road  wonders  at  the 
little  change  so  many  years  have  made 
in  the  scene  of  the  grand  achievements 
of  his  youth,  and  in  his  mind  he  runs 
over  the  long  calendar  to  assure  him- 
self that  so  many  autumns  have  glowed 
and  faded  since  that  happy  day.  How 
can  he  have  grown  old,  his  ear  dull  to 
the  voices  of  the  woods,  his  sight  dim 
with  the  slowly  but  surely  falling  veil  of 
coming  blindness,  so  that  even  now  the 
road  winds  into  a  misty  haze  just  before 
192 


TWO   SHOTS 


him,  yet  these  trees  be  young  and 
lusty? 

As  they  and  the  unfaded  page  of  mem- 
ory record  the  years,  it  was  but  a  little 
while  ago  that  his  heart  was  almost 
bursting  with  pride  of  that  first  triumph. 
Would  that  he  might  once  more  feel  that 
delicious  pang  of  joy. 

Hark !  There  is  the  quit !  quit !  of 
a  grouse,  and  there  another  and  another, 
and  the  patter  and  rustle  of  their  re- 
treating footsteps,  presently  launching 
into  sudden  flight,  vaguely  seen  in  swift 
bolts  of  gray,  hurtling  among  gray  tree 
trunks  and  variegated  foliage.  True  to 
the  old  instinct  his  gun  leaps  to  his 
shoulder,  and  he  fires  again  and  again 
at  the  swift  target.  But  the  quick  eye 
no  longer  guides  the  aim,  the  timely 
finger  no  longer  pulls  the  trigger,  and 
the  useless  pellets  waste  themselves  on 
the  leaves  and  twigs. 

The  woods  are  full  of  grouse,  as  if  all 
the  birds  of  the  region  had  congregated 
here  to  mock  his  failing  sight  and  skill. 
On  every  side  they  burst  away  from  him 
like  rockets,  and  his  quick  but  futile 
charges  in  rapid  succession  are  poured 


TWO   SHOTS 


in  their  direction,  yet  not  a  bird  falls, 
nor  even  a  feather  wavers  down  through 
the  still  October  air.  His  dim  eyes  re- 
fuse to  mark  down  the  birds  that  alight 
nearest  ;  he  can  only  vaguely  follow  their 
flight  by  the  whirring  rush  of  wings  and 
the  click  of  intercepting  branches. 

He  is  not  ashamed  of  his  loss  of  skill, 
only  grieved  to  know  that  his  shooting 
days  are  over,  yet  he  is  glad  there  is 
no  one  near  to  see  his  failure.  He 
makes  renunciation  of  all  title  to  the 
name  of  a  crack  shot,  too  well  know- 
ing that  this  is  no  brief  lapse  of  skill, 
but  the  final,  inevitable  falling  off  of  the 
quick  eye  and  sure  hand.  Slowly  and 
sadly  he  makes  his  way  to  where  the 
shaded  path  merges  into  the  sunny 
clearing.  There,  from  the  cover  of  the 
last  bush,  a  laggard  bird  springs  as  if 
thrown  from  a  catapult,  describing  in 
his  flight  an  arc  of  a  great  circle,  and 
clearly  defined  against  the  steel-blue 
sky. 

Again  the  gun  springs  instinctively  to 

the  shoulder,  the  instantaneous  aim  is 

taken  well  ahead  on  the  line  of  flight, 

the  trigger  pressed  in  the  nick  of  time, 

194 


TWO   SHOTS 


the  charge  explodes,  and  out  of  a  cloud 
of  feathers  drifting  and  whirling  in  the 
eddies  of  his  own  wing-beats,  the  noble 
bird  sweeps  downward  in  the  continua- 
tion of  the  course  that  ends  with  a  dull 
thud  on  the  pasture  sward. 

The  old  sportsman  lifts  his  clean- 
killed  bird  without  a  thrill  of  exultation 
—  he  is  only  devoutly  thankful  for  the 
happy  circumstance  which  made  suc- 
cessful the  last  shot  he  will  ever  fire, 
and  that  not  as  a  miss  he  may  remem- 
ber it.  Henceforth  untouched  by  him 
his  gun  shall  hang  upon  the  wall,  its 
last  use  linked  with  the  pleasant  mem- 
ory of  his  last  shot. 


XL 

NOVEMBER   DAYS 

IN  a  midsummer  sleep  one  dreams  of 
winter,  its  cold,  its  silence  and  desolation 
all  surrounding  him ;  then  awakes,  glad 
to  find  himself  in  the  reality  of  the  light 
and  warmth  of  summer. 

Were  we  dreaming  yesterday  of  woods 
more  gorgeous  in  their  leafage  than  a 
flower  garden  in  the  flush  of  prof  use  st 
bloom,  so  bright  with  innumerable  tints 
that  autumnal  blossoms  paled  beside 
them  as  stars  at  sunrise  ?  Were  we 
dreaming  of  air  soft  as  in  springtime,  of 
the  gentle  babble  of  brooks,  the  carol  of 
bluebirds,  the  lazy  chirp  of  crickets,  and 
have  we  suddenly  awakened  to  be  con- 
fronted by  the  desolation  of  naked  for- 
ests, the  more  forlorn  for  the  few  tattered 
remnants  of  gay  apparel  that  flutter  in 
the  bleak  wind  ?  To  hear  but  the  sullen 
roar  of  the  chill  blast  and  the  clash  of 
stripped  boughs,  the  fitful  scurry  of  wind- 
196 


NOVEMBER   DAYS 


swept  leaves  and  the  raving  of  swollen 
streams,  swelling  and  falling  as  in  chang- 
ing stress  of  passion,  and  the  heavy 
leaden  patter  of  rain  on  roof  and  sodden 
leaves  and  earth  ? 

Verily,  the  swift  transition  is  like  a 
pleasant  dream  with  an  unhappy  awak- 
ening. Yet  not  all  November  days  are 
dreary.  Now  the  sun  shines  warm  from 
the  steel-blue  sky,  its  eager  rays  devour 
the  rime  close  on  the  heels  of  the  retreat- 
ing shadows,  and  the  north  wind  sleeps. 
The  voice  of  the  brimming  stream  falls 
to  an  even,  softer  cadence,  like  the  mur- 
mur of  pine  forests  swept  by  the  light 
touch  of  a  steady  breeze. 

Then  the  wind  breathes  softly  from 
the  south,  and  there  drifts  with  it  from 
warmer  realms,  or  arises  at  its  touch 
from  the  earth  about  us,  or  falls  from 
the  atmosphere  of  heaven  itself,  not 
smoke,  nor  haze,  but  something  more 
ethereal  than  these  :  a  visible  air,  balmy 
with  odors  of  ripeness  as  the  breath  of 
June  with  perfume  of  flowers.  It  per- 
vades earth  and  sky,  which  melt  together 
in  it,  till  the  bounds  of  neither  are  dis- 
cernible, and  blends  all  objects  in  the 


NOVEMBER   DAYS 


landscape  beyond  the  near  foreground, 
till  nothing  is  distinct  but  some  golden 
gleam  of  sunlit  water,  bright  as  the  orb 
that  shines  upon  it.  Flocks  of  migrating 
geese  linger  on  the  stubble  fields,  and 
some  laggard  crows  flap  lazily  athwart 
the  sky  or  perch  contentedly  upon  the 
naked  treetops  as  if  they  cared  to  seek 
no  clime  more  genial.  The  brief  heav- 
enly beauteousness  of  Indian  summer 
has  fallen  upon  the  earth,  a  few  tran- 
quil days  of  ethereal  mildness  dropped 
into  the  sullen  or  turbulent  border  of 
winter. 

In  November  days,  as  in  all  others, 
the  woods  are  beautiful  to  •  the  lover  of 
nature  and  to  the  sportsman  who  in 
their  love  finds  the  finer  flavor  of  his 
pastime.  Every  marking  of  the  gray 
trunks,  each  moss-patch  and  scale  of 
lichen  on  them,  is  shown  more  distinctly 
now  in  the  intercepted  light,  and  the 
delicate  tracery  of  the  bare  branches 
and  their  netted  shadows  on  the  rum- 
pled carpet  of  the  forest  floor,  have  a 
beauty  as  distinctive  as  the  fullness  of 
green  or  frost-tinted  leafage  and  its  sil- 
houette of  shade. 

198 


NOVEMBER   DAYS 


No  blossom  is  left  in  woods  or  fields, 
save  where  in  the  one  the  witch-hazel 
unfolds  its  unseasonable  flowers  yellow 
beneath  cold  skies,  or  a  pink  blossom  of 
herb-robert  holds  out  with  modest  brav- 
ery in  a  sheltered  cranny  of  the  rocks  ; 
and  where  in  the  other,  the  ghostly 
bloom  of  everlasting  rustles  above  the 
leafless  stalks  in  the  wind-swept  pastures. 
There  are  brighter  flashes  of  color  in 
the  sombre  woods  where  the  red  winter- 
berries  shine  on  their  leafless  stems  and 
the  orange  and  scarlet  clusters  of  the 
twining  bitter-sweet  light  up  the  gray 
trellis  of  the  vagrant  climber. 

No  sense  of  loss  or  sadness  oppresses 
the  soul  of  the  ardent  sportsman  as  he 
ranges  the  unroofed  aisles  alert  for  the 
wary  grouse,  the  skulking  woodcock, 
full-grown  and  strong  of  wing  and  keen- 
eyed  for  every  enemy,  or  the  hare  flash- 
ing his  half-donned  winter  coat  among 
the  gray  underbrush  as  he  bounds  away 
before  the  merry  chiding  of  the  beagles. 
The  brown  monotony  of  the  marshes  is 
pleasant  to  him  as  green  fields,  while  the 
wild  duck  tarries  in  the  dark  pools  and 
the  snipe  probes  the  unfrozen  patches  of 
199 


NOVEMBER   DAYS 


ooze.  To  him  all  seasons  are  kind,  all 
days  pleasant,  wherein  he  may  pursue 
his  sport,  though  the  rain  pelt  him,  chill 
winds  assail  him,  or  the  summer  sun 
shower  upon  him  its  most  fervent  rays, 
and  in  these  changeful  days  of  Novem- 
ber he  finds  his  full  measure  of  content. 


XLI 

THE    MUSKRAT 

A  LITTLE  turning  of  nature  from  her 
own  courses  banishes  the  beaver  from 
his  primal  haunts,  but  his  less  renowned 
and  lesser  cousin,  the  muskrat,  philo- 
sophically accommodates  himself  to  the 
changed  conditions  of  their  common  fos- 
ter mother  and  still  clings  fondly  to  her 
altered  breast. 

The  ancient  forests  may  be  swept 
away  and  their  successors  disappear,  till 
there  is  scarcely  left  him  a  watersoaked 
log  to  use  as  an  intermediate  port  in  his 
coastwise  voyages ;  continual  shadow  may 
give  place  to  diurnal  sunshine,  woodland 
to  meadow  and  pasture,  the  plough  tear 
the  roof  of  his  underground  home,  and 
cattle  graze  where  once  only  the  cloven 
hoofs  of  the  deer  and  the  moose  trod  the 
virgin  mould,  yet  he  holds  his  old  place. 

In  the  springtides  of  present  years  as 
in  those  of  centuries  past  his  whining 


THE   MUSKRAT 


call  echoes  along  the  changed  shores, 
his  wake  seams  with  silver  the  dark  gar- 
ment of  the  water,  and  his  comically 
grim  visage  confronts  you  now  as  it  did 
the  Waubanakee  bowmen  in  the  old  days 
when  the  otter  and  the  beaver  were  his 
familiars. 

Unlike  the  beaver's  slowly  maturing 
crops,  his  food  supply  is  constantly  pro- 
vided in  the  annual  growth  of  the 
marshes.  Here  in  banks  contiguous 
to  endless  store  of  succulent  sedge  and 
lily  roots  and  shell-cased  tidbits  of  mus- 
sels, he  tunnels  his  stable  water-portaled 
home,  and  out  there,  by  the  channel's 
edge,  builds  his  sedge-thatched  hut  be- 
fore the  earliest  frost  falls  upon  the 
marshes.  In  its  height,  some  find  proph- 
ecy of  high  or  low  water,  and  in  the 
thickness  of  its  walls  the  forecast  of  a 
mild  or  severe  winter,  but  the  prophet 
himself  is  sometimes  flooded  out  of  his 
house,  sometimes  starved  and  frozen 
in  it. 

In  the  still,  sunny  days  between  the 
nights  of  its  unseen  building,  the  blue 
spikes  of  the  pickerel -weed  and  the 
white  trinities  of  the  arrow-head  yet 

202 


THE   MUSKRAT 


bloom  beside  it.  Then  in  the  golden 
and  scarlet  brightness  of  autumn  the  de- 
parting wood  drake  rests  on  the  roof  to 
preen  his  plumage,  and  later  the  dusky 
duck  swims  on  its  watery  lawn.  Above 
it  the  wild  geese  harrow  the  low,  cold 
arch  of  the  sky,  the  last  fleet  of  sere 
leaves  drifts  past  it  in  the  bleak  wind, 
and  then  ice  and  snow  draw  the  veil  of 
the  long  winter  twilight  over  the  musk- 
rat's  homes  and  haunts. 

These  may  be  gloomy  days  he  spends 
groping  in  the  dark  chambers  of  his  hut 
and  burrow,  or  gathering  food  in  the 
dimly  lighted  icy  water,  with  never  a 
sight  of  the  upper  world  nor  ever  a  sun- 
beam to  warm  him. 

But  there  are  more  woful  days  when 
the  sun  and  the  sky  are  again  opened  to 
him,  and  he  breathes  the  warm  air  of 
spring,  hears  the  blackbirds  sing  and  the 
bittern  boom.  For,  amid  all  the  glad- 
ness of  nature's  reawakened  life,  danger 
lurks  in  all  his  paths  ;  the  cruel,  hungry 
trap  gapes  for  him  on  every  jutting  log, 
on  every  feeding-bed,  even  in  the  door- 
way of  his  burrow  and  by  the  side  of  his 
house. 

203 


THE   MUSKRAT 


The  trapper's  skiff  invades  all  his 
pleasant  waters  ;  on  every  hand  he  hears 
the  splash  of  its  paddles,  the  clank  of  its 
setting  pole,  and  he  can  scarcely  show 
his  head  above  water  but  a  deadly  shower 
of  lead  bursts  upon  it.  He  hears  the 
simulated  call  of  his  beloved,  and  voy- 
aging hot-hearted  to  the  cheating  tryst 
meets  only  death. 

At  last  comes  the  summer  truce  and 
happy  days  of  peace  in  the  tangled  jun- 
gle of  the  marsh,  with  the  wild  duck 
and  bittern  nesting  beside  his  watery 
path,  the  marsh  wren  weaving  her  rushy 
bower  above  it. 

So  the  days  of  his  life  go  on,  and  the 
days  of  his  race  continue  in  the  land 
of  his  unnumbered  generations.  Long 
may  he  endure  to  enliven  the  drear 
tameness  of  civilization  with  a  memory 
of  the  world's  old  wildness. 
204 


XLII 

NOVEMBER   VOICES 

WITH  flowers  and  leaves,  the  bird 
songs  have  faded  out,  and  the  hum  and 
chirp  of  insect  life,  the  low  and  bleat  of 
herds  and  flocks  afield,  and  the  busy 
sounds  of  husbandry  have  grown  infre- 
quent. There  are  lapses  of  such  silence 
that  the  ear  aches  for  some  audible  sig- 
nal of  life ;  and  then  to  appease  it  there 
comes  with  the  rising  breeze  the  solemn 
murmur  of  the  pines  like  the  song  of 
the  sea  on  distant  shores,  the  sibilant 
whisper  of  the  dead  herbage,  the  clatter 
of  dry  pods,  and  the  fitful  stir  of  fallen 
leaves,  like  a  scurry  of  ghostly  feet  flee- 
ing in  affright  at  the  sound  of  their  own 
passage. 

The  breeze  puffs  itself  into  a  fury  of 
wind,  and  the  writhing  branches  shriek 
and  moan  and  clash  as  if  the  lances  of 
phantom  armies  were  crossed  in  wild 
melde. 

205 


NOVEMBER   VOICES 


The  woods  are  full  of  unlipped  voices 
speaking  one  with  another  in  pleading, 
in  anger,  in  soft  tones  of  endearment ; 
and  one  hears  his  name  called  so  dis- 
tinctly that  he  answers  and  calls  again, 
but  no  answer  is  vouchsafed  him,  only 
moans  and  shrieks  and  mocking  laughter, 
till  one  has  enough  of  wild  voices  and 
longs  for  a  relapse  of  silence. 

More  softly  it  is  broken  when  through 
the  still  air  comes  the  cheery  note  of 
the  chickadee  and  the  little  trumpet 
of  his  comrade  the  nuthatch  and  far 
away  the  muffled  beat  of  the  grouse's 
drum,  or  from  a  distance  the  mellow 
baying  of  a  hound  and  its  answering 
echoes,  swelling  and  dying  on  hilltop 
or  glen,  or  mingling  in  melodious  con- 
fusion. 

From  skyward  comes  the  clangor  of 
clarions,  wild  and  musical,  proclaiming 
the  march  of  gray  cohorts  of  geese  ad- 
vancing southward  through  the  hills  and 
dales  of  cloudland.  There  come,  too, 
the  quick  whistling  beat  of  wild  ducks' 
pinions,  the  cry  of  a  belated  plover,  and 
the  creaking  voice  of  a  snipe.  Then  the 
206 


NOVEMBER   VOICES 


bawling  of  a  ploughman  in  a  far-off  field 
—  and  farther  away  the  rumble  and  shriek 
of  a  railroad  train  —  brings  the  listening 
ear  to  earth  again  and  its  plodding  busy 
life. 

207 


XLIII 

THANKSGIVING 

DOUBTLESS  many  a  sportsman  has 
bethought  him  that  his  Thanksgiving 
turkey  will  have  a  finer  flavor  if  the 
feast  is  prefaced  by  a  few  hours  in  the 
woods,  with  dog  and  gun.  Meaner  fare 
than  this  day  of  bounty  furnishes  forth  is 
made  delicious  by  such  an  appetizer,  and 
the  Thanksgiving  feast  will  be  none  the 
worse  for  it. 

What  can  be  sweeter  than  the  whole- 
some fragrance  of  the  fallen  leaves  ? 
What  more  invigorating  than  the  breath 
of  the  two  seasons  that  we  catch :  here 
in  the  northward  shade  of  a  wooded  hill 
the  nipping  air  of  winter,  there  where 
the  southern  slope  meets  the  sun  the 
genial  warmth  of  an  October  day.  Here 
one's  footsteps  crunch  sharply  the  frozen 
herbage  and  the  ice-bearded  border  of  a 
spring's  overflow  ;  there  splash  in  thawed 
pools  and  rustle  softly  among  the  dead 
leaves. 

208 


THANKSGIVING 


The  flowers  are  gone,  but  they  were 
not  brighter  than  the  winter  berries  and 
bittersweet  that  glow  around  one.  The 
deciduous  leaves  are  fallen  and  withered, 
but  they  were  not  more  beautiful  than 
the  delicate  tracery  of  their  forsaken 
branches,  and  the  steadfast  foliage  of 
the  evergreens  was  never  brighter.  The 
song-birds  are  singing  in  southern  woods, 
but  chickadee,  nuthatch,  and  wood- 
pecker are  chatty  and  companionable 
and  keep  the  woods  in  heart  with  a  stir 
of  life. 

Then  from  overhead  or  underfoot  a 
ruffed  grouse  booms  away  into  the  gray 
haze  of  branches,  and  one  hears  the 
whirr  and  crash  of  his  headlong  flight 
long  after  he  is  lost  to  sight,  perchance 
long  after  the  echo  of  a  futile  shot  has 
died  away.  Far  off  one  hears  the  in- 
termittent discharge  of  rifles  where  the 
shooters  are  burning  powder  for  their 
Thanksgiving  turkey,  and  faintly  from 
far  away  comes  the  melancholy  music  of 
a  hound.  Then  nearer  and  clearer,  then 
a  rustle  of  velvet-clad  feet,  and  lo,  rey- 
nard  himself,  the  wildest  spirit  of  the 
woods,  materializes  out  of  the  russet  in- 
209 


THANKSGIVING 


distinctness  and  flashes  past,  with  every 
sense  alert.  Then  the  hound  goes  by, 
and  footstep,  voice,  and  echo  sink  into 
silence.  For  silence  it  is,  though  the 
silver  tinkle  of  the  brook  is  in  it,  and  the 
stir  of  the  last  leaf  shivering  forsaken  on 
its  bough. 

In  such  quietude  one  may  hold  heart- 
felt thanksgiving,  feasting  full  upon  a 
crust  and  a  draught  from  the  icy  rivulet, 
and  leave  rich  viands  and  costly  wines 
for  the  thankless  surfeiting  of  poorer 
men. 


XLIV 

DECEMBER   DAYS 

FEWER  and  more  chill  have  become 
the  hours  of  sunlight,  and  longer  stretch 
the  noontide  shadows  of  the  desolate 
trees  athwart  the  tawny  fields  and  the 
dead  leaves  that  mat  the  floor  of  the 
woods. 

The  brook  braids  its  shrunken  strands 
of  brown  water  with  a  hushed  murmur 
over  a  bed  of  sodden  leaves  between 
borders  of  spiny  ice  crystals,  or  in  the 
pools  swirl  in  slow  circles  the  imprisoned 
fleets  of  bubbles  beneath  a  steadfast  roof 
of  glass.  Dark  and  sullen  the  river 
sulks  its  cheerless  way,  enlivened  but  by 
the  sheldrake  that  still  courses  his  prey 
in  the  icy  water,  and  the  mink  that  like 
a  fleet  black  shadow  steals  along  the 
silent  banks.  Gaudy  wood  duck  and 
swift-winged  teal  have  long  since  de- 
parted and  left  stream  and  shore  to  these 
marauders  and  to  the  trapper,  who  now 
gathers  here  his  latest  harvest. 

211 


DECEMBER   DAYS 


The  marshes  are  silent  and  make  no 
sign  of  life,  though  beneath  the  domes 
of  many  a  sedge-built  roof  the  unseen 
muskrats  are  astir,  and  under  the  icy 
cover  of  the  channels  fare  to  and  fro  on 
their  affairs  of  life,  undisturbed  by  any 
turmoil  of  the  upper  world. 

When  the  winds  are  asleep  the  lake 
bears  on  its  placid  breast  the  moveless 
images  of  its  quiet  shores,  deserted  now 
by  the  latest  pleasure  seekers  among 
whose  tenantless  camps  the  wild  wood- 
folk  wander  as  fearlessly  as  if  the  foot  of 
man  had  never  trodden  here.  From  the 
still  midwaters  far  away  a  loon  halloos 
to  the  winds  to  come  forth  from  their 
caves,  and  yells  out  his  mad  laughter 
in  anticipation  of  the  coming  storm.  A 
herald  breeze  blackens  the  water  with 
its  advancing  steps,  and  with  a  roar  of 
its  trumpets  the  angry  wind  sweeps 
down,  driving  the  white-crested  ranks  of 
waves  to  assault  the  shores.  Far  up  the 
long  incline  of  pebbly  beaches  they  rush, 
and  leaping  up  the  walls  of  rock  hang 
fetters  of  ice  upon  the  writhing  trees. 
Out  of  the  seething  waters  arise  lofty 
columns  of  vapor,  which  like  a  host  of 


DECEMBER  DAYS 


gigantic  phantoms  stalk,  silent  and  ma- 
jestic, above  the  turmoil,  till  they  fall  in 
wind-tossed  showers  of  frost  flakes. 

There  are  days  when  almost  complete 
silence  possesses  the  woods,  yet  listening 
intently  one  may  hear  the  continual 
movement  of  myriads  of  snow  fleas  pat- 
tering on  the  fallen  leaves  like  the  soft, 
purr  of  such  showers  as  one  might  imagine 
would  fall  in  Lilliput. 

With  footfall  so  light  that  he  is  seen 
close  at  hand  sooner  than  heard,  a  hare 
limps  past ;  too  early  clad  in  his  white 
fur  that  shall  make  him  inconspicuous 
amid  the  winter  snow,  his  coming  shines 
from  afar  through  the  gray  underbrush 
and  on  the  tawny  leaves.  Unseen  amid 
his  dun  and  gray  environment,  the  ruffed 
grouse  skulks  unheard,  till  he  bursts  away 
in  thunderous  flight.  Overhead,  invisi- 
ble in  the  lofty  thicket  of  a  hemlock's 
foliage,  a  squirrel  drops  a  slow  patter  of 
cone  chips,  while  undisturbed  a  nuthatch 
winds  his  spiral  way  down  the  smooth 
trunk.  Faint  and  far  away,  yet  clear, 
"resound  the  axe  strokes  of  a  chopper, 
and  at  intervals  the  muffled  roar  of  a 
tree's  downfall. 

213 


DECEMBER  DAYS 


Silent  and  moveless  cascades  of  ice 
veil  the  rocky  steeps  where  in  more 
genial  days  tiny  rivulets  dripped  down 
the  ledges  and  mingled  their  musical 
tinkle  with  the  songs  of  birds  and  the 
flutter  of  green  leaves. 

Winter  berries  and  bittersweet  still 
give  here  and  there  a  fleck  of  bright 
color  to  the  universal  gray  and  dun  of 
the  trees,  and  the  carpet  of  cast-off 
leaves  and  the  dull  hue  of  the  evergreens 
but  scarcely  relieve  the  sombreness  of 
the  woodland  landscape. 

Spanning  forest  and  field  with  a  low 
flat  arch  of  even  gray,  hangs  a  sky  as 
cold  as  the  landscape  it  domes  and  whose 
mountain  borders  lie  hidden  in  its  hazy 
foundations.  Through  this  canopy  of 
suspended  snow  the  low  noontide  sun 
shows  but  a  blotch  of  yellowish  gray,  ray- 
less  and  giving  forth  no  warmth,  and, 
as  it  slants  toward  its  brief  decline,  grows 
yet  dimmer  till  it  is  quite  blotted  out  in 
the  gloom  of  the  half-spent  afternoon. 

The  expectant  hush  that  broods  over 

the   forlorn  and  naked  earth  is  broken 

only  by  the  twitter  of  a  flock  of  snow 

buntings  which,   like  a  straight  -  blown 

214 


DECEMBER   DAYS 


flurry  of  flakes,  drift  across  the  fields, 
and,  sounding  solemnly  from  the  depths 
of  the  woods,  the  hollow  hoot  of  a  great 
owl.  Then  the  first  flakes  come  waver- 
ing down,  then  blurring  all  the  landscape 
into  vague  unreality  they  fall  faster,  with 
a  soft  purr  on  frozen  grass  and  leaves  till 
it  becomes  unheard  on  the  thickening 
noiseless  mantle  of  snow.  Deeper  and 
deeper  the  snow  infolds  the  earth,  cover- 
ing all  its  unsightliness  of  death  and 
desolation. 

Now  white-furred  hare  and  white- 
feathered  bunting  are  at  one  with  the 
white-clad  world  wherein  they  move,  and 
we,  so  lately  accustomed  to  the  green- 
ness of  summer  and  the  gorgeousness  of 
autumn,  wondering  at  the  ease  where- 
with we  accept  this  marvel  of  transfor- 
mation, welcome  these  white  December 
days  and  in  them  still  find  content. 
215 


XLV 

WINTER    VOICES 

OUT  of  her  sleep  nature  yet  gives  forth 
voices  betokening  that  life  abides  be- 
neath the  semblance  of  death,  that  her 
warm  heart  still  beats  under  the  white 
shroud  that  infolds  her  rigid  breast. 

A  smothered  tinkle  as  of  muffled  bells 
comes  up  from  the  streams  through  their 
double  roofing  of  snow  and  ice,  and  the 
frozen  pulse  of  the  trees  complains  of  its 
thralldom  with  a  resonant  twang  as  of  a 
strained  cord  snapped  asunder. 

Beneath  their  frozen  plains,  the  lakes 
bewail  their  imprisonment  with  hollow 
moans  awakening  a  wild  and  mournful 
chorus  of  echoes  from  sleeping  shores 
that  answer  now  no  caress  of  ripples  nor 
angry  stroke  of  waves  nor  dip  and  splash 
of  oar  and  paddle. 

The  breeze  stirs  leafless  trees  and 
shaggy  evergreens  to  a  murmur  that  is 
sweet,  if  sadder  than  they  gave  it  in  the 
216 


WINTER   VOICES 


leafy  days  of  summer,  when  it  bore  the 
perfume  of  flowers  and  the  odor  of  green 
fields,  and  one  may  imagine  the  spirit  of 
springtime  and  summer  lingers  among 
the  naked  boughs,  voicing  memory  and 
hope. 

Amid  all  the  desolation  of  their  wood- 
land haunts  the  squirrels  chatter  their 
delight  in  windless  days  of  sunshine,  and 
scoff  at  biting  cold  and  wintry-  blasts. 
The  nuthatch  winds  his  tiny  trumpet, 
the  titmouse  pipes  his  cheery  note,  the 
jay  tries  the  innumerable  tricks  of  his 
unmusical  voice,  and  from  their  rollick- 
ing flight  athwart  the  wavering  slant  of 
snowflakes  drifts  the  creaking  twitter  of 
buntings. 

The  sharp,  resonant  strokes  of  the 
woodman's  axe  and  the  groaning  down- 
fall of  the  monarchs  that  it  lays  low, 
the  shouts  of  teamsters,  the  occasional 
report  of  a  gun,  the  various  sounds  of 
distant  farmstead  life,  the  jangle  of 
sleigh  bells  on  far  -  off  highways,  the 
rumbling  roar  of  a  railroad  train  rushing 
and  panting  along  its  iron  path,  and  the 
bellowing  of  its  far -echoed  signals,  all 
proclaim  how  busily  affairs  of  life  and 
217 


WINTER   VOICES 


pleasure  still  go  on  while  the  summer- 
wearied  earth  lies  wrapped  in  her  winter 
sleep. 

Night,  stealing  upon  her  in  dusky 
pallor,  under  cloudy  skies,  or  silvering 
her  face  with  moonbeams  and  starlight, 
brings  other  and  wilder  voices.  Sol- 
emnly the  unearthly  trumpet  of  the  owl 
resounds  from  his  woodland  hermitage, 
the  fox's  gasping  bark,  wild  and  un- 
canny, marks  at  intervals  his  wayward 
course  across  the  frozen  fields  on  some 
errand  of  love  or  freebooting,  and,  swell- 
ing and  falling  with  puff  and  lapse  of 
the  night  wind,  as  mournful  and  lone- 
some as  the  voice  of  a  vagrant  spirit, 
comes  from  the  mountain  ridges  the 
baying  of  a-  hound,  hunting  alone  and 
unheeded,  while  his  master  basks  in  the 
comfort  of  his  fireside. 
218 


XLVI 

THE    VARYING    HARE 

IT  is  wonderful  that  with  such  a  host 
of  enemies  to  maintain  himself  against, 
the  varying  hare  may  still  be  counted  as 
one  of  our,  familiar  acquaintances.  Ex- 
cept in  the  depths  of  the  great  wilder- 
nesses, he  has  no  longer  to  fear  the 
wolf,  the  wolverine,  the  panther,  and  the 
lesser  f elides,  but  where  the  younger 
woodlands  have  become  his  congenial 
home,  they  are  also  the  home  of  a  mul- 
titude of  relentless  enemies.  The  hawk, 
whose  keen  eyes  pierce  the  leafy  roof 
of  the  woods,  wheels  above  him  as  he 
crouches  in  his  form.  When  he  goes 
abroad  under  the  moon  and  stars,  the 
terrible  shadow  of  the  horned  owl  falls 
upon  his  path,  and  the  fox  lurks  beside 
it  to  waylay  him,  and  the  clumsy  rac- 
coon, waddling  home  from  a  cornfield 
revel,  may  blunder  upon  the  timid  way- 
farer. 

219 


THE   VARYING   HARE 


But  of  all  his  enemies  none  is  more 
inveterate  than  man,  though  he  is  not, 
as  are  the  others,  impelled  by  necessity, 
but  only  by  that  savagery,  the  survival 
of  barbarism,  which  we  dignify  by  the 
name  of  the  sporting  instinct. 

Against  them  all,  how  slight  seem 
the  defenses  of  such  a  weak  and  timid 
creature.  Yet  impartial  nature,  having 
compassed  him  about  with  foes,  has  shod 
his  feet  with  swiftness  and  silence,  and 
clad  his  body  with  an  almost  invisible 
garment.  The  vagrant  zephyrs  touch 
the  fallen  leaves  more  noisily  than  his 
soft  pads  press  them.  The  first  snow 
that  whitens  the  fading  gorgeousness 
of  the  forest  carpet  falls  scarcely  more 
silently. 

Among  the  tender  greens  of  early 
summer  and  the  darker  verdure  of  mid- 
summer, the  hare's  brown  form  is  as  in- 
conspicuous as  a  tuft  of  last  year's  leaves, 
and  set  in  the  brilliancy  of  autumnal 
tints,  or  the  russet  hue  of  their  decay, 
it  still  eludes  the  eye.  Then  winter 
clothes  him  in  her  own  whiteness  so  he 
may  sit  unseen  upon  her  lap. 

When  he  has  donned  his  winter  suit 


THE   VARYING   HARE 


too  early  and  his  white  coat  is  danger- 
ously conspicuous  on  the  brown  leaves 
and  among  the  misty  gray  of  naked 
undergrowth,  he  permits  your  near  ap- 
proach as  confidently  as  if  he  were  of  a 
color  with  his  surroundings.  Is  he  not 
aware  that  his  spotless  raiment  betrays 
him,  or  does  he  trust  that  he  may  be 
mistaken  for  a  white  stone  or  a  scroll 
of  bark  sloughed  from  a  white  birch  ? 
That  would  hardly  save  him  from  the 
keener-sensed  birds  and  beasts  of  prey, 
but  may  fool  your  dull  eyes. 

In  summer  wanderings  in  the  woods 
you  rarely  catch  sight  of  him,  though 
coming  upon  many  faintly  traced  paths 
where  he  and  his  wife  and  their  brown 
babies  make  their  nightly  way  among 
the  ferns.  Nor  are  you  often  favored 
with  a  sight  of  him  in  more  frequent 
autumnal  tramps,  unless  when  he  is  flee- 
ing before  the  hounds  whose  voices 
guide  you  to  a  point  of  observation. 
He  has  now  no  eyes  nor  ears  for  any- 
thing but  the  terrible  clamor  that  pur- 
sues him  wherever  he  turns,  however  he 
doubles.  If  a  shot  brings  him  down  and 
does  not  kill  him,  you  will  hear  a  cry  so 


THE   VARYING  HARE 


piteous  that  it  will  spoil  your  pleasant 
dreams  of  sport  for  many  a  night. 

After  a  snowfall  a  single  hare  will  in 
one  night  make  such  a  multitude  of 
tracks  as  will  persuade  you  that  a  dozen 
have  been  abroad.  Perhaps  the  trail  is 
so  intricately  tangled  with  a  purpose  of 
misleading  pursuit,  perhaps  it  is  but  the 
record  of  saunterings  as  idle  as  your 
own. 

As  thus  you  wander  through  the 
pearl  -  enameled  arches,  your  roving 
glances  are  arrested  by  a  rounded  form 
which,  as  white  and  motionless  as  every- 
thing around  it,  yet  seems  in  some 
way  not  so  lifeless.  You  note  that  the 
broad  footprints  end  there,  and  then  be- 
come aware  of  two  wide,  bright  eyes, 
unblinkingly  regarding  you  from  the 
fluffy  tuft  of  whiteness.  How  perfectly 
assured  he  is  of  his  invisibility,  and  if 
he  had  but  closed  his  bright  eyes  you 
might  not  guess  that  he  was  anything 
but  a  snow-covered  clump  of  moss. 
How  still  and  breathless  he  sits  till  you 
almost  touch  him,  and  then  the  white 
clod  suddenly  flashes  into  life  and  im- 
petuous motion,  bounding  away  in  a 


THE  VARYING   HARE 


halo  of  feathery  flakes  as  if  he  himself 
were  dissolving  into  white  vapor. 

Happy  he,  if  he  might  so  elude  all 
foes ;  but  alas  for  him,  if  the  swift- 
winged  owl  had  been  as  close  above 
him  or  the  agile  fox  within  leap.  Then 
instead  of  this  glimpse  of  beautiful  wild 
life  to  treasure  in  your  memory,  you 
would  only  have  read  the  story  of 
a  brief  tragedy,  briefly  written,  with  a 
smirch  of  blood  and  a  tuft  of  rumpled 
fur. 

223 


XLVII 

THE   WINTER   CAMP-FIRE 

THE  chief  requisite  of  a  winter  camp- 
fire  is  volume.  The  feeble  flame  and 
meagre  bed  of  embers  that  are  a  hot 
discomfort  to  the  summer  camper,  while 
he  hovers  over  coffee-pot  and  frying-pan, 
would  be  no  more  than  the  glow  of  a 
candle  toward  tempering  this  nipping 
air.  This  fire  must  be  no  dainty  nib- 
bier  of  chips  and  twigs  that  a  boy's 
hatchet  may  furnish,  but  a  roaring 
devourer  of  logs,  for  whose  carving  the 
axe  must  be  long  and  stoutly  wielded  — 
a  very  glutton  of  solid  fuel,  continually 
demanding  more  and  licking  with  its 
broad  red  tongues  at  the  branches  that 
sway  and  toss  high  above  in  its  hot 
breath. 

So  fierce  is  it  that  you  approach  cau- 
tiously to  feed  it  and  the  snow  shrinks 
away  from  it  and  can  quench  of  it  only 
the  tiny  sparks  that  are  spit  out  upon  it. 
224 


THE   WINTER   CAMP-FIRE 

You  must  not  be  too  familiar  with  it, 
yet  it  is  your  friend  after  its  own  man- 
ner, fighting  away  for  you  the  creeping 
demon  of  cold,  and  holding  at  bay,  on 
the  rim  of  its  glare,  the  wolf  and  the 
panther. 

With  its  friendly  offices  are  mingled 
many  elfish  tricks.  It  boils  your  pot 
just  to  the  point  you  wish,  then  boils 
it  over  and  licks  up  the  fragrant  brew 
of  celestial  leaf  or  Javanese  berry.  It 
roasts  or  broils  your  meat  to  a  turn, 
then  battles  with  you  for  it  and  sears 
your  fingers  when  you  strive  to  snatch 
the  morsel  from  its  jaws,  and  perhaps 
burns  it  to  a  crisp  before  your  very 
eyes,  vouchsafing  but  the  tantalizing  fra- 
grance of  the  feast. 

Then  it  may  fall  into  the  friendliest 
and  most  companionable  of  moods,  lazily 
burning  its  great  billets  of  ancient  wood 
while  you  burn  the  Virginian  weed,  sing- 
ing to  you  songs  of  summer,  its  tongues 
of  flame  murmuring  like  the  south  wind 
among  green  leaves,  and  mimicking  the 
chirp  of  the  crickets  and  the  cicada's 
cry  in  the  simmer  of  exuding  sap  and 
vent  of  gas,  and  out  of  its  smoke  blos- 
225 


THE   WINTER   CAMP-FIRE 

som  sparks,  that  drift  away  in  its  own 
currents  like  red  petals  of  spent  flowers. 

It  paints  pictures,  some  weird  or 
grotesque,  some  beautiful,  now  of  ghosts 
and  goblins,  now  of  old  men,  now  of 
fair  women,  now  of  lakes  crinkled  with 
golden  waves  and  towers  on  pine-crowned 
crags  ruddy  with  the  glow  of  sunset, 
sunny  meadows  and  pasture  lands,  with 
farmsteads  and  flocks  and  herds. 

The  ancient  trees  that  rear  themselves 
aloft  like  strong  pillars  set  to  hold  up 
the  narrow  arch  of  darkness,  exhale  an 
atmosphere  of  the  past,  in  which  your 
thoughts,  waking  or  sleeping,  drift  back- 
ward to  the  old  days  when  men  whose 
dust  was  long  since  mingled  with  the 
forest  mould  moved  here  in  the  rage  of 
war  and  the  ardor  of  the  chase.  Shad- 
owy forms  of  dusky  warriors,  horribly 
marked  in  war  paint,  gather  about  the 
camp-fire  and  sit  in  its  glare  in  voice- 
less council,  or  encircle  it  in  the  gro- 
tesquely terrible  movement  of  the  war 
dance. 

Magically  the  warlike  scene  changes 
to  one  of  peace.  The  red  hunters  steal 
226 


THE   WINTER  CAMP-FIRE 

silently  in  with  burdens  of  game.  The 
squaws  sit  in  the  ruddy  light  plying 
their  various  labors,  while  their  impish 
children  play  around  them  in  mimicry 
of  battle  and  the  chase. 

All  then  vanish,  and  white-clad  sol- 
diers of  France  bivouac  in  their  place  — 
or  red-coated  Britons,  or  Provincial  rang- 
ers, unsoldierly  to  look  upon,  in  home- 
spun garb,  but  keen-eyed,  alert,  and  the 
bravest  of  the  brave. 

These  dissolve  like  wreaths  of  smoke, 
and  a  solitary  white  hunter,  clothed  all 
in  buckskin,  sits  over  against  you.  His 
long  flint-lock  rifle  lying  across  his  lap, 
he  is  looking  with  rapt  gaze  into  the 
fire,  dreaming  as  you  are. 

So,  growing  brighter  as  the  daylight 
grows  dim  and  the  gloaming  thickens 
to  the  mirk,  and  paling  again  as  day- 
light creeps  slowly  back  upon  the  world, 
but  always  bright  in  the  diurnal  twi- 
light of  the  woods,  the  camp-fire  weaves 
and  breaks  its  magic  spells,  now  leap- 
ing, now  lapsing,  as  its  own  freaks 
move  it.  Then,  perhaps,  when  it  has 
charmed  you  far  across  the  border  of 
227 


THE   WINTER  CAMP-FIRE 

dreamland  and  locked  your  eyes  in  the 
blindness  of  sleep,  it  will  startle  you 
back  to  the  cold  reality  of  the  wintry 
woods  with  a  crash  and  roar  of  sudden 
revival. 

228 


XLVIII 

JANUARY   DAYS 

IN  these  midwinter  days,  how  muffled 
is  the  earth  in  its  immaculate  raiment,  so 
disguised  in  whiteness  that  familiar  places 
are  strange,  rough  hollows  smoothed  to 
mere  undulations,  deceitful  to  the  eye 
and  feet,  and  level  fields  so  piled  with 
heaps  and  ridges  that  their  owners 
scarcely  recognize  them.  The  hovel  is 
as  regally  roofed  as  the  palace,  the  rudest 
fence  is  a  hedge  of  pearl,  finer  than  a 
wall  of  marble,  and  the  meanest  wayside 
weed  is  a  white  flower  of  fairyland. 

The  woods,  which  frost  and  November 
winds  stripped  of  their  leafy  thatch,  are 
roofed  again,  now  with  an  arabesque  of 
alabaster  more  delicate  than  the  green 
canopy  that  summer  unfolded,  and  all 
the  floor  is  set  in  noiseless  pavement, 
traced  with  a  shifting  pattern  of  blue 
shadows.  In  these  silent  aisles  the 
echoes  are  smothered  at  their  birth. 
229 


JANUARY   DAYS 


There  is  no  response  of  airy  voices  to 
the  faint  call  of  the  winter  birds.  The 
sound  of  the  axe-stroke  flies  no  farther 
than  the  pungent  fragrance  of  the  smoke 
that  drifts  in  a  blue  haze  from  the 
chopper's  fire.  The  report  of  the  gun 
awakes  no  answering  report,  and  each 
mellow  note  of  the  hound  comes  sepa- 
rate to  the  ear,  with  no  jangle  of  rever- 
berations. 

Fox  and  hound  wallow  through  the 
snow  a  crumbling  furrow  that  obliter- 
ates identity  of  either  trail,  yet  there  are 
tracks  that  tell  as  plain  as  written  words 
who  made  them.  Here  have  fallen, 
lightly  as  snowflakes,  the  broad  pads  of 
the  hare,  white  as  the  snow  he  trod ; 
there,  the  parallel  tracks  of  another  win- 
ter masker,  the  weasel,  and  those  of  the 
squirrel,  linking  tree  to  tree.  The  leaps 
of  a  tiny  wood-mouse  are  lightly  marked 
upon  the  feathery  surface  to  where  there 
is  the  imprint  of  a  light,  swift  pinion  on 
either  side,  and  the  little  story  of  his 
wandering  ends  —  one  crimson  blood 
drop  the  period  that  marks  the  finis. 

In  the  blue  shadow  at  the  bottom  of 
that  winding  furrow  are  the  dainty  foot- 
230 


JANUARY   DAYS 


prints  of  a  grouse,  and  you  wonder  why 
he,  so  strong  of  wing,  should  choose  to 
wade  laboriously  the  clogging  snow  even 
in  his  briefest  trip,  rather  than  make 
his  easy  way  through  the  unresisting 
air,  and  the  snow-written  record  of  his 
wayward  wanderings  tells  not  why. 
Suddenly,  as  if  a  mine  had  been  sprung 
where  your  next  footstep  should  fall  and 
with  almost  as  startling,  though  harm- 
less effect,  another  of  his  wild  tribe 
bursts  upward  through  the  unmarked 
white  floor  and  goes  whirring  and  clat- 
tering away,  scattering  in  powdery  ruin 
the  maze  of  delicate  tracery  the  snow- 
fall wrought  ;  and  vanishes,  leaving  only 
an  aerial  pathway  of  naked  twigs  to  mark 
his  impetuous  passage. 

In  the  twilight  of  an  evergreen  thicket 
sits  a  great  horned  owl  like  a  hermit  in 
his  cell  in  pious  contemplation  of  his 
own  holiness  and  the  world's  wicked- 
ness. But  this  recluse  hates  not  sin, 
only  daylight  and  mankind.  Out  in  the 
fields  you  may  find  the  white-robed  bro- 
ther of  this  gray  friar,  a  pilgrim  from 
the  far  north,  brooding  in  the  very  face 
of  the  sun,  on  some  stack  or  outlying 
231 


JANUARY   DAYS 


barn,  but  he  will  not  suffer  you  to  come 
so  near  to  him  as  will  this  solemn  an- 
chorite who  stares  at  you  unmoved  as  a 
graven  image  till  you  come  within  the 
very  shadows  of  his  roof. 

Marsh  and  channel  are  scarcely  distin- 
guishable now  but  by  the  white  domes 
of  the  muskrats'  winter  homes  and  here 
and  there  a  sprawling  thicket  or  button 
bush,  for  the  rank  growth  of  weeds  is 
beaten  flat,  and  the  deep  snow  covers  it 
and  the  channel  ice  in  one  unbroken 
sheet. 

Champlain's  sheltered  bays  and  coves 
are  frozen  and  white  with  snow  or  frost, 
and  the  open  water,  whether  still  or 
storm-tossed,  black  beneath  clouds  or 
bluer  than  the  blue  dome  that  arches  it, 
looks  as  cold  as  ice  and  snow.  Some- 
times its  steaming  breath  lies  close 
above  it,  sometimes  mounts  in  sway- 
ing, lofty  columns  to  the  sky,  but  always 
cold  and  ghostly,  without  expression  of 
warmth  or  life. 

So  far  away  to  hoary  peaks  that  shine 
with  a  glittering  gleam  against  the  blue 
rim  of  the  sky,  or  to  the  furthest  blue- 
gray  line  of  woodland  that  borders  the 
232 


JANUARY   DAYS 


horizon,  stretches  the.  universal  white- 
ness, so  coldly  shines  the  sun  from  the 
low  curve  of  his  course,  and  so  chilly 
comes  the  lightest  waft  of  wind  from 
wheresoever  it  listeth,  that  it  tasks  the 
imagination  to  picture  any  land  on  all 
the  earth  where  spring  is  just  awakening 
fresh  life,  or  where  summer  dwells  amid 
green  leaves  and  bright  flowers,  the  mu- 
sic of  birds  and  running  waters,  and  of 
warm  waves  on  pleasant  shores,  or  au- 
tumn yet  lingers  in  the  gorgeousness  of 
many  hues.  How  far  off  beyond  this 
world  seems  the  possibility  of  such  sea- 
sons, how  enduring  and  relentless  this 
which  encompasses  us. 

And  then,  at  the  close  of  the  brief 
white  day,  the  sunset  paints  a  promise 
and  a  prophecy  in  a  blaze  of  color  on  the 
sky.  The  gray  clouds  kindle  with  red 
and  yellow  fire  that  burns  about  their 
purple  hearts  in  tints  of  infinite  variety, 
while  behind  them  and  the  dark  blue 
rampart  of  the  mountains  flames  the  last 
glory  of  the  departing  sun,  fading  in  a 
tint  of  tender  green  to  the  upper  blue. 
Even  the  cold  snow  at  our  feet  flushes 
with  warm  color,  and  the  eastern  hills 
233 


JANUARY   DAYS 


blush  roseate  against  the  climbing,  dark- 
ening shadow  of  the  earth. 

It  is  as  if  some  land  of  summer  whose 
brightness  has  never  been  told  lay  un- 
veiled before  us,  its  delectable  moun- 
tains splendid  with  innumerable  hues, 
its  lakes  and  streams  of  gold  rippling  to 
purple  shores  seeming  not  so  far  before 
us  but  that  we  might,  by  a  little  journey, 
come  to  them. 

234 


XLIX 

A    NEW    ENGLAND    WOODPILE 

WHEN  the  charitable  mantle  of  the 
snow  has  covered  the  ugliness  of  the 
earth,  as  one  looks  towards  the  wood- 
lands he  may  see  a  distant  dark  speck 
emerge  from  the  blue  shadow  of  the 
woods  and  crawl  slowly  houseward.  If 
born  to  the  customs  of  this  wintry  land, 
he  may  guess  at  once  what  it  is  ;  if  not, 
speculation,  after  a  little,  gives  way  to  cer- 
tainty, when  the  indistinct  atom  grows 
into  a  team  of  quick-stepping  horses  or 
deliberate  oxen  hauling  a  sled-load  of 
wood  to  the  farmhouse. 

It  is  more  than  that.  It  is  a  part  of 
the  woods  themselves,  with  much  of 
their  wildness  clinging  to  it,  and  with 
records,  slight  and  fragmentary,  yet  legi- 
ble, of  the  lives  of  trees  and  birds  and 
beasts  and  men  coming  to  our  door. 

Before  the  sounds  of  the  creaking  sled 
and  the  answering  creak  of  the  snow  are 
235 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

heard,  one  sees  the  regular  puffs  of  the 
team's  breath  jetting  out  and  climbing 
the  cold  air.  The  head  and  shoulders 
of  the  muffled  driver  then  appear,  as  he 
sticks  by  narrow  foothold  to  the  hinder 
part  of  his  sled,  or  trots  behind  it  beating 
his  breast  with  his  numb  hands.  Prone 
like  a  crawling  band  of  scouts,  endwise 
like  battering-rams,  not  upright  with 
green  banners  waving,  Birnam  wood 
comes  to  Dunsinane  to  fight  King  Frost. 
As  the  woodpile  grows  at  the  farm- 
house door  in  a  huge  windrow  of  sled- 
length  wood  or  an  even  wall  of  cord 
wood,  so  in  the  woods  there  widens  a 
patch  of  uninterrupted  daylight.  Deep 
shade  and  barred  and  netted  shadow  turn 
to  almost  even  whiteness,  as  the  axe  saps 
the  foundations  of  summer  homes  of  birds 
and  the  winter  fastnesses  of  the  squirrels 
and  raccoons.  Here  are  the  tracks  of 
sled  and  team,  where  they  wound  among 
rocks  and  stumps  and  over  cradle  knolls 
to  make  up  a  load ;  and  there  are  those 
of  the  chopper  by  the  stump  where  he 
stood  to  fell  the  tree,  and  along  the  great 
trough  made  by  its  fall.  The  snow  is 
necked  with  chips,  dark  or  pale  accord- 
236 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

ing  to  their  kind,  just  as  they  alighted 
from  their  short  flight,  bark  up  or  down 
or  barkless  or  edgewise,  and  with  dry 
twigs  and  torn  scraps  of  scattered  moss. 

When  the  chopper  comes  to  his  work  in 
the  morning,  he  finds  traces  of  nightly 
visitors  to  his  white  island  that  have 
drifted  to  its  shores  out  of  the  gray  sea 
of  woods.  Here  is  the  print  of  the  hare's 
furry  foot  where  he  came  to  nibble  the 
twigs  of  poplar  and  birch  that  yester- 
day were  switching  the  clouds,  but  have 
fallen,  manna-like,  from  skyward  to  feed 
him.  A  fox  has  skirted  its  shadowy  mar- 
gin, then  ventured  to  explore  it,  and  in 
a  thawy  night  a  raccoon  has  waddled 
across  it. 

The  woodman  is  apt  to  kindle  a  fire 
more  for  company  than  warmth,  though 
he  sits  by  it  to  eat  his  cold  dinner,  cast- 
ing the  crumbs  to  the  chickadees,  which 
come  fearlessly  about  him  at  all  times. 
Blazing  or  smouldering  by  turns,  as  it  is 
fed  or  starved,  the  fire  humanizes  the 
woods  more  than  the  man  does.  Now 
and  then  it  draws  to  it  a  visitor,  oftenest 
a  fox-hunter  who  has  lost  his  hound, 
and  stops  for  a  moment  to  light  his  pipe 
237 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

at  the  embers  and  to  ask  if  his  dog  has 
been  seen  or  heard.  Then  he  wades  off 
through  the  snow,  and  is  presently  swal- 
lowed out  of  sight  by  gray  trees  and 
blue  shadows.  Or  the  hound  comes  in 
search  of  his  master  or  a  lost  trail.  He 
halts  for  an  instant,  with  a  wistful  look 
on  his  sorrowful  face,  then  disappears, 
nosing  his  way  into  the  maw  of  the 
woods. 

If  the  wood  is  cut  "  sled  length,"  which 
is  a  saving  of  time  and  also  of  chips, 
which  will  now  be  made  at  the  door  and 
will  serve  to  boil  the  tea-kettle  in  sum- 
mer, instead  of  rotting  to  slow  fertiliza- 
tion of  the  woodlot,  the  chopper  is  one  of 
the  regular  farm  hands  or  a  "  day  man," 
and  helps  load  the  sled  when  it  comes. 
If  the  wood  is  four  foot,  he  is  a  profes- 
sional, chopping  by  the  cord,  and  not 
likely  to  pile  his  cords  too  high  or  long, 
nor  so  closely  that  the  squirrels  have 
much  more  trouble  in  making  their  way 
through  them  than  over  them  ;  and  the 
man  comes  and  goes  according  to  his 
ambition  to  earn  money. 

In  whichever  capacity  the  chopper 
plies  his  axe,  he  is  pretty  sure  to  bring 
238 


A   NEW   ENGLAND    WOODPILE 

no  sentimentalism  to  his  task.  He  in- 
herits the  feeling  that  was  held  by  the 
old  pioneers  toward  trees,  who  looked 
upon  the  noblest  of  them  as  only  giant 
weeds,  encumbering  the  ground,  and  best 
got  rid  of  by  the  shortest  means.  To 
him  the  tree  is  a  foe  worthy  of  no  re- 
spect or  mercy,  and  he  feels  the  tri- 
umph of  a  savage  conquerer  when  it 
comes  crashing  down  and  he  mounts  the 
prostrate  trunk  to  dismember  it ;  the 
more  year -marks  encircling  its  heart, 
the  greater  his  victory.  To  his  ears,  its 
many  tongues  tell  nothing,  or  preach 
only  heresy.  Away  with  the  old  tree 
to  the  flames !  To  give  him  his  due,  he 
is  a  skillful  executioner,  and  will  compel 
a  tree  to  fall  across  any  selected  stump 
within  its  length.  If  one  could  forget 
the  tree,  it  is  a  pretty  sight  to  watch  the 
easy  swing  of  the  axe,  and.  see  how  un- 
erringly every  blow  goes  to  its  mark, 
knocking  out  chips  of  a  span's  breadth. 
It  does  not  look  difficult  nor  like  work ; 
but  could  you  strike  "  twice  in  a  place/' 
or  in  half  a  day  bring  down  a  tree  twice 
as  thick  as  your  body  ?  The  wise  farmer 
cuts,  for  fuel,  only  the  dead  and  decaying 
239 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

trees  in  his  woodlot,  leaving  saplings 
and  thrifty  old  trees  to  "  stand  up  and 
grow  better,"  as  the  Yankee  saying  is. 

There  is  a  prosperous  and  hospitable 
look  in  a  great  woodpile  at  a  farmhouse 
door.  Logs  with  the  moss  of  a  hundred 
years  on  them,  breathing  the  odors  of  the 
woods,  have  come  to  warm  the  inmates 
and  all  in-comers.  The  white  smoke  of 
these  chimneys  is  spicy  with  the  smell 
of  seasoned  hard  wood,  and  has  a  savor  of 
roasts  and  stews  that  makes  one  hungry. 
If  you  take  the  back  track  on  a  trail  of 
pitchy  smoke,  it  is  sure  to  lead  you  to 
a  squalid  threshold  with  its  starved  heap 
of  pine  roots  and  half -decayed  wood. 
Thrown  down  carelessly  beside  it  is  a 
dull  axe,  wielded  as  need  requires  with 
spiteful  awkwardness  by  a  slatternly  wo- 
man, or  laboriously  upheaved  and  let  fall 
with  uncertain  stroke  by  a  small  boy. 

The  Yankees  who  possess  happy  mem- 
ories of  the  great  open  fires  of  old  time 
are  growing  few,  but  Whittier  has  em- 
balmed for  all  time,  in  "  Snow-Bound," 
their  comfort  and  cheer  and  picturesque- 
ness.  When  the  trees  of  the  virgin  forest 
cast  their  shadows  on  the  newly  risen  roof 
240 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

there  was  no  forecasting  provision  for 
winter.  The  nearest  green  tree  was  cut, 
and  hauled,  full  length,  to  the  door,  and 
with  it  the  nearest  dry  one  was  cut  to 
match  the  span  of  the  wide  fireplace  ; 
and  when  these  were  gone,  another  raid 
was  made  upon  the  woods  ;  and  so  from 
hand  to  mouth  the  fire  was  fed.  It  was 
not  uncommon  to  draw  the  huge  back- 
logs on  to  the  hearth  with  a  horse,  and 
sometimes  a  yoke  of  oxen  were  so  em- 
ployed. Think  of  a  door  wide  enough 
for  this  :  half  of  the  side  of  a  house  to 
barricade  against  the  savage  Indians  and 
savage  cold !  It  was  the  next  remove 
from  a  camp-fire.  There  was  further 
likeness  to  it  in  the  tales  that  were  told 
beside  it,  of  hunting  and  pioneer  hard- 
ships, of  wild  beasts  and  Indian  forays, 
while  the  eager  listeners  drew  to  a  closer 
circle  on  the  hearth,  and  the  awed  children 
cast  covert  scared  backward  glances  at 
the  crouching  and  leaping  shadows  that 
thronged  on  the  walls,  and  the  great 
samp-kettle  bubbled  and  seethed  on  its 
trammel,  and  the  forgotten  johnny-cake 
scorched  on  its  tilted  board. 

As  conveniently  near  the  shed  as  pos- 
241 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

sible,  the  pile  of  sled -length  wood  is 
stretching  itself  slowly,  a  huge  vertebrate, 
every  day  or  two  gaining  in  length ;  a 
joint  of  various  woods,  with  great  trunks 
at  the  bottom,  then  smaller  ones,  gradu- 
ally growing  less  to  the  topping  out  of 
saplings  and  branches.  Here  is  a  sugar- 
maple,  three  feet  through  at  the  butt,  with 
the  scars  of  many  tappings  showing  on  its 
rough  bark.  The  oldest  of  them  may 
have  been  made  by  the  Indians.  Who 
knows  what  was  their  method  of  tapping  ? 
Here  is  the  mark  of  the  gouge  with  which 
early  settlers  drew  the  blood  of  the  tree; 
a  fashion  learned,  likely  enough,  from  the 
aboriginal  sugar-makers,  whose  narrow- 
est stone  gouges  were  as  passable  tools 
for  the  purpose  as  any  they  had  for  an- 
other. These  more  distinct  marks  show 
where  the  auger  of  later  years  made  its 
wounds.  The  old  tree  has  distilled  its 
sweets  for  two  races  and  many  genera- 
tions of  men,  first  into  the  bark  buck- 
ets of  Waubanakis,  then  into  the  ruder 
troughs  of  Yankee  pioneers,  then  into  the 
more  convenient  wide-bottomed  wooden 
sap-tubs  ;  and  at  last,  when  the  march  of 
improvement  has  spoiled  the  wilderness 
242 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

of  the  woods  with  trim-built  sugar-houses 
and  patent  evaporators,  the  sap  drips 
with  resounding  metallic  tinkle  into  pails 
of  shining  tin.  Now  the  old  maple  has 
come  to  perform  its  last  office,  of  warm- 
ing and  cooking  the  food  for  a  genera- 
tion that  was  unborn  when  it  was  yet  a 
lusty  tree. 

Beside  it  lies  a  great  wild-cherry  tree 
that  somehow  escaped  the  cabinet  maker 
when  there  was  one  in  every  town  and 
cherry  wood  was  in  fashion.  Its  fruit 
mollified  the  harshness  of  the  New  Eng- 
land rum  of  many  an  old-time  raising  and 
husking.  Next  is  a  yellow  birch  with  a 
shaggy  mane  of  rustling  bark  along  its 
whole  length,  like  a  twelve-foot  piece  of 
the  sea  serpent  drifted  ashore  and  hauled 
inland ;  then  a  white  birch,  no  longer 
white,  but  gray  with  a  coating  of  moss, 
and  black  with  belts  of  old  peelings, 
made  for  the  patching  of  canoes  and 
roofing  of  shanties. 

With  these  lies  a  black  birch,  whose 
once  smooth  bark  age  has  scaled  and  fur- 
rowed, and  robbed  of  all  its  tenderness 
and  most  of  its  pungent,  aromatic  flavor. 
Some  of  it  yet  lingers  in  the  younger  top- 
243 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

most  twigs  which  the  hired  man  brings 
home  to  the  little  folks,  who  fall  to  gnaw- 
ing them  like  a  colony  of  beavers.  By 
it  is  an  elm,  whose  hollow  trunk  was  the 
home  of  raccoons  when  it  stood  on  its 
buttressed  stump  in  the  swamp.  Near 
by  is  a  beech,  its  smooth  bark  wrinkled 
where  branches  bent  away  from  it,  and 
blotched  with  spots  of  white  and  patches 
of  black  and  gray  lichen.  It  is  marked 
with  innumerable  fine  scratches,  the  track 
of  the  generations  of  squirrels  that  have 
made  it  their  highway  ;  and  among  these, 
the  wider  apart  and  parallel  nail-marks 
of  a  raccoon,  and  also  the  drilling  of 
woodpeckers.  Here,  too,  are  traces  of 
man's  visitation,  for  distorted  with  the 
growth  of  years  are  initials,  and  a  heart 
and  dart  that  symbolized  the  tender  pas- 
sion of  some  one  of  the  past,  who  wan- 
dered, love-sick,  in  the  shadow  of  the 
woods.  How  long  ago  did  death's  inevi- 
table dart  pierce  his  heart  ?  Here  he 
wrote  a  little  of  his  life's  history,  and 
now  his  name  and  that  of  his  mistress  are 
so  completely  forgotten  one  cannot  guess 
them  by  their  first  letters  inscribed  in 
the  yesterday  of  the  forest's  years. 
244 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

Above  these  logs,  rolled  up  on  skids 
or  sled  stakes,,  are  smaller  yet  goodly 
bodies  of  white  ash,  full  of  oars  for  the 
water  and  rails  for  the  land  ;  and  of  black 
ash,  as  full  of  barrel  hoops  and  bas- 
ket splints,  the  ridged  and  hoary  bark 
shagged  with  patches  of  dark  moss  ;  and 
a  pine  too  knotty  for  sawing,  with  old 
turpentine  boxes  gashing  its  lower  part, 
the  dry  resin  in  them  half  overgrown, 
but  odorous  still ;  and  oaks  that  have 
borne  their  last  acorns  ;  and  a  sharded 
hickory  that  will  never  furnish  another 
nut  for  boy  or  squirrel,  but  now,  and  only 
this  once,  flail  handles,  swingles,  and  ox- 
bows, and  helves  for  axes  to  hew  down 
its  brethren,  and  wood  to  warm  its  de- 
stroyers, and  smoke  and  fry  ham  for 
them  ;  and  a  basswood  that  will  give  the 
wild  bees  no  more  blossoms  in  July,  hol- 
low-hearted and  unfit  for  sleigh  or  tobog- 
gan, wood  straight  rifted  and  so  white 
that  a  chip  of  it  will  hardly  show  on  the 
snow,  but  as  unprofitable  food  for  fires 
as  the  poplars  beside  it,  which,  in  the 
yellow-green  of  youth  or  the  furrowed 
gray  of  age,  have  shivered  their  last. 
Still  higher  in  the  woodpile  are  white 
245 


A   NEW   ENGLAND    WOODPILE 

birches,  yet  in  the  smooth  skin  of  their 
prime,  which  is  fit  to  be  fashioned  into 
drinking  cups  and  berry  baskets,  or  to 
furnish  a  page  for  my  lady's  album.  Here 
are  hardbacks,  some  with  grain  winding 
like  the  grooves  of  a  rifle.  This  is  the 
timber  the  Indians  made  their  bows  of, 
and  which  now  serves  the  same  purpose 
for  the  young  savages  whom  we  have 
always  with  us.  There  are  sinewy  blue 
beeches,  slowly  grown  up  from  ox-goads 
and  the  "beech  seals"  of  Ethan  Allen's 
Green  Mountain  Boys  to  the  girth  of  a 
man's  thigh,  a  size  at  which  they  mostly 
stop  growing.  A  smaller  trunk,  like  yet 
unlike  them,  sets  folks  to  guessing  what 
kind  of  wood  it  is.  He  will  hit  the  mark 
who  fires  at  random  the  names  "  shad- 
blow,"  "  service  -  berry,"  or  "  amelan- 
chier."  If  the  axe  had  been  merciful,  in 
early  May  its  branches  would  have  been 
as  white  with  blossoms  as  if  the  last  April 
snow  still  clung  to  them.  Tossed  on 
a-top  of  all  is  a  jumbled  thatch  of  small 
stuff,  — saplings  improvidently  cut,  short- 
lived striped  maple,  and  dogwood,  the 
slender  topmost  lengths  of  great  trees, 
once  the  perches  of  hawks  and  crows, 
246 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

and  such  large  branches  as  were  not  too 
crooked  to  lie  still  on  the  sled. 

The  snow-fleas,  harbingers  and  attend- 
ants of  thaws,  are  making  the  snow  in 
the  woods  gray  with  their  restless  myr- 
iads, when  the  sled  makes  its  last  trip 
across  the  slushy  fields,  which  are  fast 
turning  from  white  to  dun  under  the 
March  winds  and  showers  and  sunshine. 

The  completed  woodpile  basks  in  the 
growing  warmth,  as  responsive  to  the 
touch  of  spring  as  if  every  trunk  yet  up- 
held its  branches  in  the  forest.  The  buds 
swell  on  every  chance-spared  twig,  and 
sap  starts  from  the  severed  ducts.  From 
the  pine  drip  slowly  lengthening  stalac- 
tites of  amber,  from  the  hickory  thick 
beads  of  honeydew,  and  from  the  maples 
a  flow  of  sweet  that  calls  the  bees  from 
their  hives  across  the  melting  drifts. 
Their  busy  hum  makes  an  island  of  sum- 
mer sound  in  the  midst  of  the  silent  ebb- 
ing tide  of  winter. 

As  the  days  grow  warmer,  the  wood- 
pile invites  idlers  as  well  as  busy  bees 
and  wood-cutters.  The  big  logs  are  com- 
fortable seats  to  lounge  on  while  whit- 
tling a  pine  chip,  and  breathing  the  min- 
247 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

gled  odors  of  the  many  woods  freshly 
cut  and  the  indescribable  woodsy  smell 
brought  home  in  the  bark  and  moss,  and 
listening  to  the  hum  of  the  bees  and 
harsher  music  of  the  saws  and  axe,  the 
sharp,  quick  swish  of  the  whip-saw,  the 
longer  drawn  and  deeper  ring  of  the  cross- 
cut, and  the  regular  beat  of  the  axe,  — 
fiddle,  bass-viol,  and  drum,  each  with  its 
own  time,  but  all  somehow  in  tune.  The 
parts  stop  a  little  when  the  fiddler  saws 
off  his  string,  the  two  drawers  of  the  long 
bass-viol  bow  sever  theirs,  and  the  drum- 
mer splits  his  drum,  but  each  is  soon  out- 
fitted again,  and  the  funeral  march  of  the 
woodpile  goes  on.  Here  is  the  most  de- 
lightful of  places  for  those  busy  idlers 
the  children,  for  it  is  full  of  pioneers' 
and  hunters'  cabins,  robbers'  caves  and 
bears'  dens,  and  of  treasures  of  moss  and 
gum  and  birch,  and  of  punk,  the  tinder 
of  the  Indians  and  our  forefathers,  now 
gone  out  of  use  except  for  some  conser- 
vative Canuck  to  light  his  pipe  or  for 
boys  to  touch  off  their  small  ordnance. 

It  is  a  pretty  sight  to  watch  the  nut- 
hatches and  titmice  searching  the  grooves 
of  the  bark  for  their  slender  fare,  or  a 
248 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

woodpecker  chopping  his  best  for  a  liv- 
ing with  his  sharp-pointed  axe,  all  hav- 
ing followed  their  rightful  possessions 
from  the  woods,  taking  perhaps  the  track 
of  the  sled.  It  is  wonderful  to  hear  the 
auger  of  the  pine-borer,  now  thawed  into 
life,  crunching  its  unseen  way  through  the 
wood.  Then  there  is  always  the  chance 
of  the  axe  unlocking  the  stores  of  deer- 
mice,  quarts  of  beechnuts  with  all  the 
shells  neatly  peeled  off  ;  and  what  if  it 
should  happen  to  open  a  wild-bee  hive 
full  of  honey ! 

If  the  man  comes  who  made  the  round 
of  the  barns  in  the  fall  and  early  winter 
with  his  threshing-machine,  having  ex- 
changed it  for  a  sawing  machine,  he 
makes  short  work  of  our  woodpile.  A 
day  or  two  of  stumbling  clatter  of  the 
horses  in  their  treadmill,  and  the  buzzing 
and  screeching  of  the  whirling  saw,  gnaws 
it  into  a  heap  of  blocks. 

Our  lounging-place  and  the  children's 
wooden  playground  have  gone,  and  all 
the  picturesqueness  and  woodsiness  have 
disappeared  as  completely  as  when  split- 
ting has  made  only  firewood  of  the  pile. 
It  will  give  warmth  and  comfort  from 
249 


A   NEW   ENGLAND   WOODPILE 

the  stove,  but  in  that  black  sepulchre 
all  its  beauty  is  swallowed  out  of  sight 
forever.  If  it  can  go  to  a  generous 
fireplace,  it  is  beautified  again  in  the 
glowing  and  fading  embers  that  paint 
innumerable  shifting  pictures,  while  the 
leaping  flames  sing  the  old  song  of  the 
wind  in  the  branches. 
250 


A   CENTURY   OF   EXTERMINATION 

IT  seems  quite  probable  that  this 
nineteenth  century  may  be  unpleasantly 
memorable  in  centuries  to  come  as  that 
in  which  many  species  of  animate  and 
inanimate  nature  became  extinct.  It  has 
witnessed  the  extinction  of  the  great 
auk,  so  utterly  swept  off  the  face  of  the 
earth  that  the  skin,  or  even  the  egg  of 
one,  is  a  small  fortune  to  the  possessor. 
Reduced  from  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  twenty-five  years  ago  to  the  few  hun- 
dred of  to-day,  it  needs  but  a  few  years 
to  compass  the  complete  annihilation  of 
the  bison.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the 
elk  and  the  antelope  will  be  overtaken 
by  almost  as  swift  a  fate.  The  skin 
hunters,  and  the  game  butchers  miscalled 
sportsmen,  are  making  almost  as  speedy 
way  with  them  as  they  have  with  the 
buffalo. 

The    common    deer,   hedged    within 

251 


A   CENTURY  OF  EXTERMINATION 

their  narrowing  ranges  by  civilization, 
and  hunted  by  all  methods  in  all  seasons, 
may  outlast  the  century,  but  they  will 
have  become  wofully  scarce  at  the  close 
of  it,  even  in  such  regions  as  the  Adiron- 
dacks,  which  seem  to  have  been  set  apart 
by  nature  especially  for  the  preservation 
of  wild  life. 

The  wild  turkey  is  passing  away,  and 
it  is  a  question  of  but  few  years  when  he 
shall  have  departed  forever.  In  some 
localities  the  next  noblest  of  our  game 
birds,  the  ruffed  grouse,  has  become  al- 
most a  thing  of  the  past,  and  in  some 
years  is  everywhere  so  scarce  that  there 
are  sad  forebodings  of  his  complete  dis- 
appearance from  the  rugged  hills  of 
which  he  seems  as  much  a  belonging 
as  the  lichened  rocks,  the  arbutus  and 
the  wind-swept  evergreens.  One  little 
island  on  the  New  England  coast  holds 
the  handful  that  is  left  of  the  race  of 
heath  hens. 

The  woodcock  is  being  cultivated  and 
improved  and  murdered  out  of  existence 
with  clearing  and  draining  and  summer 
shooting,  and  unseasonable  shooting  is 
doing  the  same  for  many  kinds  of  water- 
252 


A   CENTURY   OF  EXTERMINATION 

fowl.  In  the  Eastern  States  a  wild 
pigeon  is  a  rare  sight  now,  and  has  been 
for  years ;  the  netters  and  slaughterers 
have  done  their  work  too  thoroughly. 

Gentle  woman  is  making  an  end  of  the 
song-birds  that  she  may  trick  her  head- 
gear in  barbaric  and  truly  savage  fashion. 
The  brighter  plumaged  small  birds  are 
becoming  noticeably  scarce  even  in  those 
parts  of  the  country  that  the  milliners' 
collector  and  the  pot-naturalist  have  not 
yet  invaded,  and  such  as  the  scarlet 
tanager,  never  anywhere  numerous,  are 
like  to  be  soon  "collected"  out  of  liv- 
ing existence.  If  they  are  to  be  saved,  it 
is  by  no  dallying,  nor  slow  awakening  of 
popular  feeling  in  their  behalf. 

There  will  be  pine-trees,  no  doubt,  for 
centuries  to  come,  but  who  that  live 
twenty  years  hence  will  see  one  of  these 
venerable  monarchs  of  the  woods  tower- 
ing above  all  other  forest  growth,  or  see 
any  ancient  tree,  however  historic  or  pre- 
cious for  its  age  and  beauty  and  majesty 
and  mystery  of  long  past  years,  if  it  is 
worth  the  cutting  for  timber  or  fuel  ? 

Even  the  lesser  growths  of  the  old 
woods  are  passing  away.  Some,  as  the 
253 


A   CENTURY    OF  EXTERMINATION 

carpeting  sphagnum  and  the  sprawling 
hobble  bush,  disappear  through  changed 
conditions ;  others,  as  the  medicinal 
spikenard,  sarsaparilla,  and  ginseng,  and 
the  decorative  running  pine  and  the  arbu- 
tus, through  ruthless,  greedy  gathering, 
which  leaves  no  root  nor  ripened  seed 
to  perpetuate  their  kind. 

An  old  man  may  be  glad  that  his  eyes 
are  not  to  behold  the  coming  desolation, 
but  he  must  be  sad  when  he  thinks  of 
the  poor  inheritance  of  his  children. 
254 


LI 

THE   PERSISTENCY   OF   PESTS 

FROM  the  sowing  and  planting  of  his 
seed,  almost  indeed  from  the  turning  of 
the  furrow,  the  farmer  enters  upon  a 
contest  with  the  weeds,  for  a  place  in 
which  his  crops  may  grow,  and  if  he  or 
the  crops  are  not  vanquished,  as  the 
weeds  never  are,  the  warfare  continues 
till  harvest  time. 

While  he,  with  infinite  labor,  prepares 
the  ground  and  sows  his  seed  with  all 
care,  praying  that  drouth  may  not  wither 
nor  floods  drown  it,  and  that  frosts  may 
not  cut  down  the  tender  plants,  the 
winds  of  heaven  and  the  fowls  of  the  air 
scatter  broadcast  the  seeds  of  the  nox- 
ious weeds,  or  these  lie  dormant  in  the 
ground  awaiting  opportunity.  They  ger- 
minate in  sterile  places,  fence  corners 
and  nooks  of  the  wayside,  and  flourish 
alike  in  scorching  sunshine  and  in  sodden 
soil. 

255 


THE   PERSISTENCY   OF  PESTS 

Weeds  defy  the  latest  and  the  earli- 
est frosts,  grow  with  their  roots  in  the 
air ;  and  cut  down,  spring  up,  grow  on, 
blossoming  and  ripening  their  seed  in 
creeping  stealth  and  ever  unscathed  by 
blight ;  and  so  flourish  in  spite  of  all 
unkindliness  of  man  or  stress  of  nature, 
that  the  husbandman  wishes  that  they 
might  by  some  freak  of  demand  become 
the  useful  plants,  his  present  crop  the 
undesired  ones. 

Somewhat  the  same  position  in  which 
weeds  stand  opposed  to  the  plants  which 
the  husbandman  depends  upon  for  his 
livelihood,  vermin  hold  toward  the  beasts 
and  birds  upon  which  the  sportsman 
depends  for  his  recreation.  While  they 
whose  protection  men  endeavor  to  main- 
tain during  the  season  of  procreation,  and 
at  times  when  scarcity  of  food  prevails, 
decrease  often  to  complete  extinction,  the 
vermin,  whom  the  hand  of  man  is  always 
against,  continue  to  increase  and  multi- 
ply, or  at  least  hold  their  own.  With 
them  as  with  the  weeds  nature  seems  to 
deal  with  a  kinder  hand.  She  spares 
and  nourishes  them,  while  she  destroys 
their  betters. 

.     256 


THE   PERSISTENCY   OF   PESTS 

The  snow  crust,  which  walls  the  quail 
in  a  living  tomb,  makes  a  royal  banquet- 
ing hall  for  the  pestiferous  field  mice, 
where  they  feast  and  revel  in  plenty, 
secure  from  all  their  enemies,  feathered 
or  furred.  It  impounds  the  deer,  but 
gives  free  range  to  the  wolf  and  to  his 
as  pitiless  two-legged  brother,  the  crust 
hunter. 

The  wet  seasons  that  drown  the  cal- 
low woodcock  and  grouse  work  no  harm 
to  the  ravenous  brood  of  the  hawk  and 
owl,  nor  to  the  litter  of  fox,  mink,  or 
weasel.  Wet  or  dry,  hot  or  cold,  the 
year  fosters  them  throughout  its  varied 
round. 

Winged  ticks  kill  the  grouse,  but  the 
owl  endures  their  companionship  with 
sedate  serenity  and  thrives  with  a  swarm 
of  the  parasites  in  the  covert  of  his 
feathers. 

The  skunk  has  always  been  killed  on 
sight  as  a  pest  that  the  world  would  be 
the  sweeter  for  being  rid  of.  In  later 
years  the  warfare  against  him  has  re- 
ceived an  impetus  from  the  value  of  his 
fur,  but  though  this  has  gone  on  relent- 
lessly for  many  years,  his  tribe  still  live 
257 


THE   PERSISTENCY   OF   PESTS 

to  load  the  air  with  a  fragrance  that  in- 
cites the  ambitious  trapper  to  further 
conquest. 

All  the  year  round,  farmers -and  their 
boys  wage  war  upon  the  crows,  but  each 
returning  autumn  sees  the  columns  of 
the  black  army  moving  southward  with 
apparently  unthinned  ranks,  while,  year 
by  year,  the  harried  platoons  of  ducks 
and  geese  return  fewer  and  less  fre- 
quent. Those  detested  foreigners,  the 
English  sparrows,  increase  and  multi- 
ply in  spite  of  bitter  winters  and  right- 
eous persecution,  while  our  natives,  the 
beloved  song-birds,  diminish  in  num- 
bers. On  every  hand  we  find  the  un- 
desirable in  animated  nature,  the  birds 
and  beasts  that  we  would  gladly  be  rid 
of,  maintaining  their  numbers,  while 
those  whose  increase  we  desire  are 
losing  ground  and  tending  toward  extinc- 
tion. 

The  prospect  for  the  sportsman  of  the 
future  is  indeed  gloomy,  unless  he  shall 
make  game  of  the  pests  and  become  a 
hunter  of  skunks  and  a  shooter  of  crows 
and  sparrows.  Who  can  say  that  a  hun- 
258 


THE   PERSISTENCY   OF   PESTS 

dred  years  hence  the  leading  sportsmen 
of  the  period  will  not  be  wrangling  over 
the  points  and  merits  of  their  skunk  and 
woodchuck  dogs  and  bragging  of  their 
bags  of  crows  and  sparrows  ? 
259 


LII 

THE    WEASEL 

A  CHAIN  that  is  blown  away  by  the 
wind  and  melted  by  the  sun,  links  with 
pairs  of  parallel  dots  the  gaps  of  farm 
fences,  and  winds  through  and  along 
walls  and  zigzag  lines  of  rails,  is  likely  to 
be  the  most  visible  sign  that  you  will 
find  in  winter  of  one  bold  and  persistent 
little  hunter's  presence. 

Still  less  likely  are  you  to  be  aware  of 
it  in  summer  or  fall,  even  by  such  traces 
of  his  passage,  for  he  is  in  league  with 
nature  to  keep  his  secrets.  When  every 
foot  of  his  outdoor  wandering  must  be 
recorded  she  makes  him  as  white  as 
the  snow  whereon  it  is  imprinted,  save 
his  beady  eyes  and  dark  tail-tip.  When 
summer  is  green  and  autumn  gay  or  sad 
of  hue  she  clothes  him  in  the  brown 
wherewith  she  makes  so  many  of  her 
wild  children  inconspicuous. 

Yet  you  may  see  him,  now  and  then, 
260 


THE   WEASEL 


in  his  white  suit  or  in  his  brown,  gliding 
with  lithe,  almost  snake-like  movement 
along  the  lower  fence  rails,  going  forth 
hunting  or  bearing  home  his  game,  a 
bird  or  a  fat  field-mouse.  In  a  cranny  of 
an  old  lichen-scaled  stone  wall  you  may 
see  his  bright  eyes  gleaming  out  of  the 
darkness,  like  dewdrops  caught  in  a 
spider's  web,  and  then  the  brown  head 
thrust  cautiously  forth  to  peer  curiously 
at  you.  Then  he  may  favor  you  with 
the  exhibition  of  an  acrobatic  feat :  his 
hinder  paws  being  on  the  ground  in  the 
position  of  standing,  he  twists  his  slender 
body  so  that  his  forepaws  are  placed  in 
just  the  reverse  position  on  the  stone  or 
rail  above  him,  and  he  looks  upward  and 
backward. 

He  may  be  induced  to  favor  you  with 
intimate  and  familiar  acquaintance,  to 
take  bits  of  meat  from  your  hand  and 
even  to  climb  to  your  lap  and  search 
your  pockets  and  suffer  you  to  lay  a 
gentle  hand  upon  him,  but  he  has  sharp 
teeth  wherewith  to  resent  too  great  lib- 
erties. 

While  he  may  be  almost  a  pet  of  a 
household  and  quite  a  welcome  visitor  of 
261 


THE   WEASEL 


rat -infested  premises,  he  becomes  one  of 
the  worst  enemies  of  the  poultry -wife 
when  he  is  tempted  to  fall  upon  her 
broods  of  chicks.  He  seems  possessed 
of  a  murderous  frenzy,  and  slays  as  ruth- 
lessly and  needlessly  as  a  wolf  or  a  human 
game -butcher  or  the  insatiate  angler. 
Neither  is  he  the  friend  of  the  sports- 
man, for  he  makes  havoc  among  the 
young  grouse  and  quail  and  the  callow 
woodcock. 

The  trapper  reviles  him  when  he  finds 
him  in  his  mink  trap,  for  all  the  beauty 
of  his  ermine  a  worthless  prize  drawn  in 
this  chanceful  lottery.  When  every  one 
carried  his  money  in  a  purse,  the  wea- 
sel's slender  white  skin  was  in  favor  with 
country  folk.  This  use  survives  only  in 
the  command  or  exhortation  to  "draw 
your  weasel."  When  the  purse  was 
empty,  it  gave  the  spendthrift  an  un- 
timely hint  by  creeping  out  of  his 
pocket.  In  the  primest  condition  of  his 
fur  he  neither  keeps  nor  puts  money  in 
your  pocket  now.  He  is  worth  more  to 
look  at,  with  his  lithe  body  quick  with 
life,  than  to  possess  in  death. 
262 


LIII 

FEBRUARY   DAYS 

IN  the  blur  of  storm  or  under  clear 
skies,  the  span  of  daylight  stretches 
farther  from  the  fading  dusk  of  dawn  to 
the  thickening  dusk  of  evening.  Now 
in  the  silent  downfall  of  snow,  now  in 
the  drift  and  whirl  of  flakes  driven  from 
the  sky  and  tossed  from  the  earth  by  the 
shrieking  wind,  the  day's  passage  is  un- 
marked by  shadows.  It  is  but  a  long 
twilight,  coming  upon  the  world  out  of 
one  misty  gloom,  and  going  from  it  into 
another.  Now  the  stars  fade  and  van- 
ish in  the  yellow  morning  sky,  the  long 
shadows  of  the  hills,  clear  cut  on  the 
shining  fields,  swing  slowly  northward 
and  draw  eastward  to  the  netted  umbrage 
of  the  wood.  So  the  dazzling  day  grows 
and  wanes  and  the  attenuated  shadows 
are  again  stretched  to  their  utmost,  then 
dissolved  in  the  flood  of  shade,  and  the 
pursued  sunlight  takes  flight  from  the 
263 


FEBRUARY   DAYS 


mountain  peaks  to  the  clouds,  from  cloud 
to  cloud  along  the  darkening  sky,  and 
vanishes  beyond  the  blue  barrier  of  the 
horizon. 

There  are  days  of  perfect  calm  and 
hours  of  stillness  as  of  sleep,  when  the 
lightest  wisp  of  cloud  fleece  hangs  move- 
less against  the  sky  and  the  pine-trees 
forget  their  song.  But  for  the  white 
columns  of  smoke  that,  unbent  in  the 
still  air,  arise  from  farmstead  chimneys, 
one  might  imagine  that  all  affairs  of  life 
had  been  laid  aside ;  for  no  other  sign  of 
them  is  visible,  no  sound  of  them  falls 
upon  the  ear.  You  see  the  cows  and 
sheep  in  the  sheltered  barnyards  and 
their  lazy  breaths  arising  in  little  clouds, 
but  no  voice  of  theirs  drifts  to  you. 

No  laden  team  crawls  creaking  along 
the  highway  nor  merry  jangle  of  sleigh 
bells  flying  into  and  out  of  hearing  over 
its  smooth  course,  nor  for  a  space  do  the 
tireless  panting  engine  and  roaring  train 
divide  earth  and  sky  with  a  wedge  of  dis- 
solving vapor.  The  broad  expanse  of 
the  lake  is  a  white  plain  of  snow-covered 
ice :  no  dash  of  angry  waves  assails  its 
shore  still  glittering  with  the  trophies  of 
264 


FEBRUARY   DAYS 


their  last  assault  ;  no  glimmer  of  bright 
waters- greets  the  sun  ;  no  keel  is  afloat; 
the  lighthouse,  its  occupation  gone, 
stares  day  and  night  with  dull  eyes  from 
its  lonely  rock,  upon  a  silent  deserted 
waste. 

In  the  wood  you  may  hear  no  sound 
but  your  own  muffled  footsteps,  the 
crackle  of  dry  twigs,  and  the  soft  swish 
of  boughs  swinging  back  from  your  pas- 
sage, and  now  and  then  a  tree  punctuating 
the  silence  with  a  clear  resonant  crack 
of  frozen  fibres  and  its  faint  echo.  You 
hear  no  bird  nor  squirrel  nor  sound  of 
woodman's  axe,  nor  do  you  catch  the 
pungent  fragrance  of  his  fire  nor  the 
subtler  one  of  fresh-cut  wood.  Indeed, 
all  odors  of  the  forest  seem  frozen  out 
of  the  air  or  locked  up  in  their  sources. 
No  perfume  drops  from  the  odor-laden 
evergreens,  only  scentless  air  reaches 
your  nostrils. 

One  day  there  comes  from  the  south 
a  warm  breath,  and  with  it  fleets  of 
white  clouds  sailing  across  the  blue 
upper  deep,  outstripped  by  their  swifter 
shadows  sweeping  in  blue  squadrons 
along  the  glistening  fields  and  darkening 
265 


FEBRUARY   DAYS 


with  brief  passage  the  gray  woodlands. 
Faster  come  the  clouds  out  of  the  south 
and  out  of  the  west,  till  they  crowd  the 
sky,  only  fragments  of  its  intense  azure 
showing  here  and  there  between  them, 
only  now  and  then  a  gleam  of  sunlight 
flashing  across  the  earth.  Then  the  blue 
sunlit  sky  is  quite  shut  away  behind  a 
low  arch  of  gray,  darkening  at  the  hori- 
zon with  thick  watery  clouds,  and  beneath 
it  all  the  expanse  of  fields  and  forest  lies 
in  universal  shadow. 

The  south  wind  is  warmer  than  yes- 
terday's sunshine,  the  snow  softens  till 
your  footsteps  are  sharply  moulded  as  in 
wax,  and  in  a  little  space  each  imprint 
is  flecked  thick  with  restless,  swarming 
myriads  of  snow-fleas.  Rain  begins  to 
fall  softly  on  snow-covered  roofs,  but 
beating  the  panes  with  the  familiar  pat- 
ter of  summer  showers.  It  becomes  a 
steady  downpour  that  continues  till  the 
saturated  snow  can  hold  no  more,  and 
the  hidden  brooks  begin  to  show  in  yel- 
low streaks  between  white,  unstable 
shores,  and  glide  with  a  swift  whisking 
rush  over  the  smooth  bottom  that  paves 
their  rough  natural  bed ;  and  as  their 
266 


FEBRUARY   DAYS 


yellow  currents  deepen  and  divide  more 
widely  their  banks,  the  noise  of  their 
onflow  fills  the  air  like  an  exaggeration 
of  the  murmur  of  pines,  and  the  song  of 
the  pines  swells  and  falls  with  the  vary- 
ing wind. 

After  the  rain  there  come,  perhaps, 
some  hours  of  quiet  sunshine  or  star- 
light, and  then  out  of  the  north  a  nipping 
wind  that  hardens  the  surface  of  the 
snow  into  solid  crust  that  delights  your 
feet  to  walk  upon.  The  rivulets  shrink 
out  of  sight  again,  leaving  no  trace  but 
water-worn  furrows  in  the  snow,  some 
frozen  fluffs  of  yellow  foam  and  stranded 
leaves  and  twigs,  grass  and  broken  weeds. 
The  broad  pools  have  left  their  shells  of 
unsupported  ice,  which  with  frequent 
sudden  crashes  shatters  down  upon  their 
hollow  beds. 

When  the  crust  has  invited  you  forth, 
you  cannot  retrace  your  way  upon  it, 
and  the  wild  snow  walkers  make  no 
record  now  of  their  recent  wanderings. 
But  of  those  who  fared  abroad  before 
this  solid  pavement  was  laid  upon  the 
snow,  fabulous  tales  are  now  inscribed 
upon  it.  Reading  them  without  ques- 
267 


FEBRUARY   DAYS 


tion,  you  might  believe  that  the  well- 
tamed  country  had  lapsed  into  the 
possession  of  its  ancient  savage  tenants, 
for  the  track  of  the  fox  is  as  big  as  a 
wolf's,  the  raccoon's  as  large  as  a  bear's, 
the  house  cat's  as  broad  as  the  panther's, 
and  those  of  the  muskrat  and  mink  per- 
suade you  to  believe  that  the  beaver  and 
otter,  departed  a  hundred  years  ago, 
have  come  to  their  own  again.  Till  the 
next  thaw  or  snowfall,  they  are  set  as 
indelibly  as  primeval  footprints  in  the 
rocks,  and  for  any  scent  that  tickles 
the  hounds'  keen  nose,  might  be  as  old. 
He  sniffs  them  curiously  and  contemptu- 
ously passes  on,  yet  finds  little  more 
promising  on  footing  that  retains  but  for 
an  instant  the  subtle  trace  of  reynard's 
unmarked  passage. 

The  delicate  curves  and  circles  that 
the  bent  weeds  etched  on  the  soft  snow 
are  widened  and  deepened  in  rigid 
grooves,  wherein  the  point  that  the  fin- 
gers of  the  wind  traced  them  with  is 
frozen  fast.  Far  and  wide  from  where 
they  fall,  all  manner  of  seeds  drift  across 
miles  of  smooth  fields,  to  spring  to  life 
and  bloom,  by  and  by,  in  strange,  unac- 
268 


FEBRUARY   DAYS 


customed  places,  and  brown  leaves  voy- 
age to  where  their  like  was  never  grown. 
The  icy  knolls  shine  in  the  sunlight  with 
dazzling  splendor,  like  golden  islands  in 
a  white  sea  that  the  north  wind  stirs 
not,  and  athwart  it  the  low  sun  and  the 
waning  moon  cast  their  long  unrippled 
glades  of  gold  and  silver.  Over  all  win- 
ter again  holds  sway,  but  we  have  once 
more  heard  the  sound  of  rain  and  run- 
ning brooks  and  have  been  given  a  prom- 
ise of  spring. 

269 


LIV 

THE   FOX 

AMONG  the  few  survivals  of  the  old  un- 
tamed world  there  are  left  us  two  that 
retain  all  the  raciness  of  their  ancestral 
wildness. 

Their  wits  have  been  sharpened  by 
the  attrition  of  civilization,  but  it  has 
not  smoothed  their  characteristics  down 
to  the  level  of  the  commonplace,  nor 
contaminated  them  with  acquired  vices 
as  it  has  their  ancient  contemporary,  the 
Indian.  But  they  are  held  in  widely 
different  esteem,  for  while  the  partridge 
is  in  a  manner  encouraged  in  continu- 
ance, the  fox  is  an  outlaw,  with  a  price 
set  upon  his  head  to  tempt  all  but  his 
few  contemned  friends  to  compass  his 
extermination. 

For  these  and  for  him  there  is  an  un- 
written code  that,  stealthily  enforced, 
gives  him  some  exemption  from  uni- 
versal persecution.  They,  having  know- 
270 


THE   FOX 


ledge  of  the  underground  house  of  many 
portals  where  the  vixen  rears  her  cubs, 
guard  the  secret  as  jealously  as  she  and 
her  lord,  from  the  unfriendly  farmer, 
poultry-wife,  and  bounty-hunting  vaga- 
bond, confiding  it  only  to  sworn  breth- 
ren of  woodcraft,  as  silent  concerning 
it  to  the  unfriendly  as  the  trees  that 
shadow  its  booty-strewn  precincts  or  the 
lichened  rocks  that  fortify  it  against 
pick  and  spade.  They  never  tell  even 
their  leashed  hounds  till  autumn  makes 
the  woods  gayer  with  painted  leaves 
than  summer  could  with  blossoms,  how 
they  have  seen  the  master  and  mistress 
of  this  woodland  home  stealing  to  it 
with  a  fare  of  field  mice  fringing  their 
jaws  or  bearing  a  stolen  lamb  or  pullet. 

They  watch  from  some  unseen  van- 
tage, with  amused  kindliness,,  the  gam- 
bols of  the  yellow  cubs  about  their 
mother,  alert  for  danger,  even  in  her 
drowsy  weariness,  and  proud  of  her  imp- 
ish brood,  even  now  practicing  tricks  of 
theft  and  cunning  on  each  other.  They 
become  abetters  of  this  family's  sins, 
apologists  for  its  crimes,  magnifiers  of 
its  unmeant  well-doing. 
271 


THE   FOX 


When  in  palliation  of  the  slaughter  of 
a  turkey  that  has  robbed  a  field  of  his 
weight  in  corn  they  offset  the  destruc- 
tion of  hordes  of  field  mice,  they  are 
reviled  by  those  who  are  righteously  ex- 
alted above  the  idleness  of  hunting  and 
the  foolishness  of  sentiment. 

At  such  hands  one  fares  no  better 
who  covets  the  fox,  not  for  the  sport  he 
may  give,  but  for  the  tang  of  wild  flavor 
that  he  imparts  to  woods  that  have 
almost  lost  it  and  to  fields  that  lose 
nothing  of  thrift  by  its  touch. 

You  may  not  see  him,  but  it  is  good 
to  know  that  anything  so  untamed  has 
been  so  recently  where  your  plodding 
footsteps  go.  You  see  in  last  night's 
snowfall  the  sharp  imprint  of  his  pads, 
where  he  has  deviously  quested  mice 
under  the  mat  of  aftermath,  or  trotted 
slowly,  pondering,  to  other  more  prom- 
ising fields,  or  there  gone  airily  cours- 
ing away  over  the  moonlit  pastures.  In 
imagination  you  see  all  his  agile  gaits 
and  graceful  poses.  Now  listening  with 
pricked  ears  to  the  muffled  squeak  of  a 
mouse,  now  pouncing  upon  his  captured 
but  yet  unseen  prize,  or  where  on  sud- 
272 


THE   FOX 


den  impulse  he  has  coursed  to  fresh 
fields,  you  see  him,  a  dusky  phantom, 
gliding  with  graceful  undulations  of 
lithe  body  and  brush  over  the  snowy 
stretches ;  or,  halting  to  wistfully  sniff, 
as  a  wolf  a  sheepfold,  the  distant  hen- 
roost ;  or,  where  a  curious  labyrinth  of 
tracks  imprint  the  snow,  you  have  a 
vision  of  him  dallying  with  his  tawny 
sweetheart  under  the  stars  of  February 
skies ;  or,  by  this  soft  mould  of  his  furry 
form  on  a  snow-capped  stump  or  boulder, 
you  picture  him  sleeping  off  the  fatigue 
of  hunting  and  love-making,  with  all 
senses  but  sight  still  alert,  unharmed  by 
the  nipping  air  that  silvers  his  whiskers 
with  his  own  breath. 

All  these  realities  of  his  actual  life 
you  may  not  see  except  in  such  pictures 
as  your  fancy  makes ;  but  when  the 
woods  are  many-hued  or  brown  in  au- 
tumn, or  gray  and  white  in  winter,  and 
stirred  with  the  wild  music  of  the 
hounds,  your  blood  may  be  set  tingling 
by  the  sight  of  him,  his  coming  an- 
nounced by  the  rustle  of  leaves  under 
his  light  footfalls.  Perhaps  unheralded 
273 


THE   FOX 


by  sound,  he  suddenly  blooms  ruddily 
out  of  the  dead  whiteness  of  the  snow. 

Whether  he  flies  past  or  carefully 
picks  his  way  along  a  fallen  tree  or  bare 
ledge,  you  remark  his  facial  expression 
of  incessant  intentness  on  cunning  de- 
vices, while  ears,  eyes,  and  nose  are 
alert  for  danger.  If  he  discovers  you, 
with  what  ready  self-possession  he  in- 
stantly gets  and  keeps  a  tree  between 
himself  and  you  and  vanishes  while  your 
gun  vainly  searches  for  its  opportunity. 
If  your  shot  brings  him  down,  and  you 
stand  over  him  exultant,  yet  pitying  the 
end  of  his  wild  life,  even  in  his  death 
throes  fearing  you  no  more,  he  yet 
strains  his  dulled  ears  to  catch  the  voices 
of  the  relentless  hounds. 

Bravely  the  wild  freebooter  holds  his 
own  against  the  encroachments  of  civili- 
zation and  the  persecution  of  mankind, 
levying  on  the  flocks  and  broods  of  his 
enemy,  rearing  his  yellow  cubs  in  the 
very  border  of  his  field,  insulting  him 
with  nightly  passage  by  his  threshold. 

Long  ago  his  fathers  bade  farewell  to 
their  grim  cousin  the  wolf,  and  saw  the 
beaver  and  the  timid  deer  pass  away, 
274 


THE   FOX 


and  he  sees  the  eagle  almost  banished 
from  its  double  realm  of  earth  and  sky, 
yet  he  hardily  endures.  For  what  he 
preserves  for  us  of  the  almost  extinct 
vvildness,  shall  we  begrudge  him  the 
meagre  compensation  of  an  occasional 
turkey  ? 

275 


LV 

AN    ICE-STORM 

OF  all  the  vagaries  of  winter  weather, 
one  of  the  rarest  is  the  ice-storm  ;  rain 
falling  with  a  wind  and  from  a  quarter 
that  should  bring  snow,  and  freezing  as 
it  falls,  not  penetrating  the  snow  but 
coating  it  with  a  shining  armor,  sheath- 
ing every  branch  and  twig  in  crystal  and 
fringing  eaves  with  icicles  of  most  fan- 
tastic shapes. 

On  ice-clad  roofs  and  fields  and  crack- 
ling trees  the  rain  still  beats  with  a 
leaden  clatter,  unlike  any  other  sound  of 
rain ;  unlike  the  rebounding  pelting  of 
hail  or  the  swish  of  wind-blown  snow. 

The  trees  begin  to  stoop  under  their 
increasing  burden,  and  then  to  crack 
and  groan  as  it  is  laid  still  heavier  upon 
them.  At  times  is  heard  the  thin,  echo- 
less  crash  of  an  overladen  branch,  first 
bending  to  its  downfall  with  a  gathering 
crackle  of  severed  fibres,  then  with  a 
276 


AN  ICE-STORM 


sudden  crash,  shattering  in  a  thousand 
fragments  the  brief  adornments  that 
have  wrought  its  destruction. 

Every  kind  of  tree  has  as  marked  in- 
dividuality in  its  icy  garniture  as  in  its 
summer  foliage.  The  gracefulness  of 
the  elms,  the  maples,  the  birches,  the 
beeches,  and  the  hornbeams  is  preserved 
and  even  intensified  ;  the  clumsy  ramage 
of  the  butternut  and  ash  is  as  stiff  as 
ever,  though  every  unbending  twig  bears 
its  row  of  glittering  pendants.  The 
hemlocks  and  firs  are  tents  of  ice,  but 
the  pines  are  still  pines,  with  every 
needle  exaggerated  in  bristling  crystal. 

Some  worthless  things  have  become 
of  present  value,  as  the  wayside  thistles 
and  the  bejeweled  grass  of  an  unshorn 
meadow,  that  yesterday  with  its  dun 
unsightliness,  rustling  above  the  snow, 
proclaimed  the  shiftlessness  of  its  owner. 

Things  most  unpicturesque  are  made 
beautiful.  The  wire  of  the  telegraph 
with  its  dull  undulations  is  transformed 
to  festoons  of  crystal  fringe,  linking  to- 
gether shining  pillars  of  glass  that  yes- 
terday were  but  bare,  unsightly  posts. 

The  woods  are  a  maze  of  fantastic 
277 


AN   ICE-STORM 


shapes  of  tree  growth.  Wood  roads  are 
barricaded  with  low  arches  of  ice  that 
the  hare  and  the  fox  can  barely  find 
passage  beneath,  and  with  long,  curved 
slants  of  great  limbs  bent  to  the  earth. 
The  wild  vines  are  turned  to  ropes  and 
cables  of  ice,  and  have  dragged  down 
their  strong  supports,  about  whose  pros- 
trate trunks  and  limbs  they  writhe  in  a 
tangle  of  rigid  coils.  The  lithe  trunks 
of  second  growth  are  looped  in  an  intri- 
cate confusion  of  arches  one  upon  an- 
other, many  upon  one,  over  whole  acres 
of  low-roofed  forest  floor. 

The  hare  and  the  grouse  cower  in  these 
tents  of  ice,  frightened  and  hungry ;  for 
every  sprout  and  bud  is  sheathed  in 
adamant,  and  scarlet  berries,  magnified 
and  unattainable,  glow  in  the  heart  of 
crystal  globules.  Even  the  brave  chick- 
adees are  appalled,  and  the  disheartened 
woodpecker  mopes  beside  the  dead  trunk, 
behind  whose  impenetrable  shield  he  can 
hear  the  grub  boring  in  safety. 

Through  the  frozen  brambles  that  lat- 
tice the  doorway  of  his  burrow  the  fox 
peers  dismayed  upon  a  glassy  surface 
that  will  hold  no  scent  of  quarry,  yet 
278 


AN   ICE-STORM 


perhaps  is  comforted  that  the  same  con- 
ditions impose  a  truce  upon  his  enemies 
the  hounds.  The  squirrel  sits  fasting 
in  his  chamber,  longing  for  the  stores 
that  are  locked  from  their  owner  in  his 
cellar.  It  is  the  dismalest  of  all  storms 
for  the  wood  folk,  despite  all  the  splen- 
dor wherewith  it  adorns  their  realm. 

One  holds  out  his  hand  and  lifts  his 
face  skyward  to  assure  himself  that  the 
rain  has  ceased,  for  there  is  a  continual 
clattering  patter  as  if  it  were  yet  falling. 
But  it  is  only  the  crackling  of  the  icy 
trees  and  the  incessant  dropping  of 
small  fragments  of  their  burden. 

The  gray  curtain  of  the  sky  drifts 
asunder,  and  the  low  sun  shines  through. 
It  glorifies  the  earth  with  the  flash  and 
gleam  of  ten  million  diamonds  set  every- 
where. The  fire  and  color  of  every  gem 
that  was  ever  delved  burn  along  the  bor- 
ders of  the  golden  pathway  that  stretches 
from  your  feet  far  away  to  the  silver  por- 
tals of  the  mountains  that  bar  our  glit- 
tering world  from  the  naming  sky. 

The  pallid  gloom  of  the  winter  night 
falls  upon  the  earth.  Then  the  full  moon 
throbs  up  behind  the  scintillating  barrier 
279 


AN   ICE-STORM 


of  the  hills.  She  presently  paves  from 
herself  to  us  a  street  of  silver  among  the 
long  blue  shadows,  and  lights  it  with  a 
thousand  stars ;  some  fallen  quite  to 
earth,  some  twinkling  among  the  droop- 
ing branches,  all  as  bright  as  the  eternal 
stars  that  shine  in  the  blue  sky  above. 
280 


LVI 

SPARE    THE    TREES 

ALL  the  protection  that  the  law  can 
give  will  not  prevent  the  game  naturally 
belonging  to  a  wooded  country  from 
leaving  it  when  it  is  deforested,  nor  keep 
fish  in  waters  that  have  shrunk  to  a 
quarter  of  their  ordinary  volume  before 
midsummer.  The  streams  of  such  a 
country  will  thus  shrink  when  the  moun- 
tains, where  the  snows  lie  latest  and  the 
feeding  springs  are,  and  the  swamps, 
which  dole  out  their  slow  but  steady 
tribute,  are  bereft  of  shade.  The  thin 
soil  of  a  rocky  hill,  when  deprived  of  its 
shelter  of  branches,  will  be  burned  by 
the  summer  sun  out  of  all  power  to  help 
the  germination  of  any  worthy  seed,  or 
to  nurture  so  noble  a  plant  as  a  tree 
through  the  tender  days  of  its  infancy. 
It  supports  only  useless  weeds  and 
brambles.  Once  so  denuded,  it  will  be 
unsightly  and  unprofitable  for  many 
281 


SPARE   THE   TREES 


years  if  not  always.  Some  swamps  at 
great  expense  may  be  brought  into  till- 
age and  meadow,  but  nine  times  out  of 
ten,  when  cleared  of  the  lusty  growth  of 
woods,  they  bear  nothing  but  wild  grass, 
and  the  streams  that  trickled  from  them 
all  the  summer  long  in  their  days  of  wild- 
ness  show  in  August  only  the  parched 
trail  of  the  spring  course. 

Our  natives  have  inherited  their  an- 
cestors' hatred  of  trees,  which  to  them 
were  only  cumberers  of  the  ground,  to 
be  got  rid  of  by  the  speediest  means  ; 
and  our  foreign-born  landholders,  being 
unused  to  so  much  woodland,  think  there 
can  be  no  end  to  it,  let  them  slash  away 
as  they  will. 

Ledges  and  steep  slopes  that  can  bear 
nothing  but  wood  to  any  profit,  are  shorn 
of  their  last  tree,  and  the  margins  of 
streams  to  the  very  edge  robbed  of  the 
willows  and  water-maples  that  shaded 
the  water  and  with  their  roots  protected 
the  banks  from  washing.  Who  has  not 
known  a  little  alder  swamp,  in  which  he 
was  sure  to  find  a  dozen  woodcock,  when 
he  visited  it  on  the  first  day  of  the  sea- 
son each  year  ?  Some  year  the  first  day 
282 


SPARE  THE   TREES 


comes  and  he  seeks  it  as  usual,  to  find 
its  place  marked  only  by  brush  heaps, 
stubs,  and  sedges ;  and  for  the  brook 
that  wimpled  through  it  in  the  days  of 
yore,  only  stagnant  pools.  The  worst  of 
it  is,  the  owners  can  seldom  give  any 
reason  for  this  slaughter  but  that  their 
victims  were  trees  and  bushes. 

The  Yankee,  with  his  proverbial  thrift- 
mess  and  forecast,  appears  entirely  to 
lose  these  gifts  when  it  comes  to  the 
proper  and  sensible  management  of 
woodlands.  Can  he  not  understand  that 
it  is  more  profitable  to  keep  a  lean  or 
thin  soil  that  will  grow  nothing  well  but 
wood,  growing  wood  instead  of  worthless 
weeds  ?  The  crop  is  one  which  is  slow 
in  coming  to  the  harvest,  but  it  is  a  sure 
one,  and  is  every  year  becoming  a  more 
valuable  one.  It  breaks  the  fierceness 
of  the  winds,  and  keeps  the  springs  from 
drying  up,  and  is  a  comfort  to  the  eye, 
whether  in  the  greenness  of  the  leaf  or 
the  barrenness  of  the  bough,  and  under 
its  protecting  arms  live  and  breed  the 
grouse,  the  quail  and  the  hare,  and  in  its 
shadowed  rills  swim  the  trout. 
283 


LVII 

THE    CHICKADEE 

THE  way  to  the  woods  is  blurred  with 
a  mist  of  driven  snow  that  veils  the 
portal  of  the  forest  with  its  upblown 
curtain,  and  blots  out  all  paths,  and  gives 
to  the  familiar  landmarks  a  ghostly  un- 
reality. The  quietude  of  the  woods  is 
disturbed  by  turbulent  voices,  the  angry 
roar  and  shriek  of  the  wind,  the  groaning 
and  clashing  of  writhing,  tormented  trees. 
Over  all,  the  sunned  but  unwarmed  sky 
bends  its  blue  arch,  as  cold  as  the  snowy 
fields  and  woods  beneath  it. 

In  such  wild  weather  you  are  not 
tempted  far  abroad  in  quest  of  old  ac- 
quaintances of  fields  and  woods,  yet  from 
the  inh'ospitable  woods  some  of  them 
come  to  you.  Among  them  all,  none  is 
more  welcome  than  that  feathered  atom 
of  life,  the  chickadee.  With  the  same 
blithe  note  that  welcomed  you  to  his 
woodland  haunts  in  spring,  in  summer, 
284 


THE   CHICKADEE 


and  in  autumn,  when  he  attended  you 
with  such  charming  familiarity,  amusing 
you  with  pretty  acrobatic  feats,  as  he 
flitted  now  before,  now  beside,  now 
above  you,  he  hails  you  now,  and  asks 
that  hospitality  be  extended  to  him. 

Set  forth  a  feast  of  suet  on  the  win- 
dow-sill, and  he  will  need  no  bidding  to 
come  and  partake  of  it.  How  daintily 
he  helps  himself  to  the  tiniest  morsels, 
never  cramming  his  bill  with  gross 
mouthfuls  as  do  his  comrades  at  the 
board,  the  nuthatch  and  the  downy  wood- 
pecker !  They,  like  unbidden  guests, 
doubtful  of  welcome  or  of  sufferance 
even,  make  the  most  of  time  that  may 
prove  all  too  brief,  and  gorge  themselves 
as  greedily  as  hungry  tramps  ;  while  he, 
unscared  by  your  face  at  the  window, 
tarries  at  his  repast,  pecking  his  crumbs 
with  leisurely  satisfaction.  You  half  ex- 
pect to  see  him  swept  from  your  sight 
like  a  thistledown  by  the  gusty  blast,  but 
he  holds  bravely  to  his  perch,  unruffled 
in  spirit  if  not  in  feathers,  and  defies 
his  fierce  assailant  with  his  oft-repeated 
challenge. 

As  often  as  you  spread  the  simple 
285 


THE   CHICKADEE 


feast  for  him  he  will  come  and  sit  at 
your  board,  a  confiding  guest,  well  as- 
sured of  welcome,  and  will  repay  you 
with  an  example  of  cheerful  life  in  the 
midst  of  dreariness  and  desolation.  In 
the  still,  bright  days,  his  cheery  voice 
rings  through  the  frosty  air,  and  when 
the  thick  veil  of  the  snow  falls  in  a  wav- 
ering slant  from  the  low  sky  its  muffled 
cadence  still  heartens  you. 

What  an  intense  spark  of  vitality 
must  it  be  that  warms  such  a  mite  in 
such  an  immensity  of  cold ;  that  floats 
his  little  life  in  this  deluge  of  frigid 
air,  and  keeps  him  in  song  while  we 
are  dumb  with  shivering  !  If  our  huge 
hulks  were  endowed  with  proportionate 
vitality,  how  easily  we  might  solve  the 
mysteries  of  the  frozen  north  ! 

On  some  February  day,  when  the  first 
promise  of  spring  is  drifted  to  you  in  the 
soft  south  wind,  the  tenderness  of  spring 
is  voiced  in  his  love-note,  brief  but  full 
of  melody,  and  sweet  as  the  evening  song 
of  the  wood  pewee.  When  the  spring 
songsters  come,  he  takes  leave  of  you. 
He  has  seen  you  safely  through  the  win- 
ter, and  departs  to  the  woods  on  affairs 
286 


THE   CHICKADEE 


of  his  own.  He  is  no  longer  a  vagrant, 
but  at  home  in  his  own  greenwood,  yet 
as  unfretted  by  the  cares  of  housekeep- 
ing as  he  was  by  the  heavy  weariness  of 
winter. 

287 


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